Poetry by Jennifer Wilson

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Pomegranates

(i)

through tears she is bloodless,
paper thin and breathing
shallow as time allows

and she makes shapes
on the windowpane, a geometry
of fading grief uneased
by lifting fog

(ii)

the fabric of her skin softens
against the harshness
of her bones as she unfolds
from her hands two coins
of no value

but the dead take them, bemused
by the faces
on their surface
yet accepting regardless
their dullness
their lack of silver shine

(iii)

a wisp of cloud wails
as well as any wind
looming with a look
like grief

“ O give me
                      give me
       give me
                      give “


(iv)

something like a poppy
reaches out of the grave

“take it” bids the god of jests

though her mouth is senseless
in death and burnished
with worms, she takes
six seeds of the pomegranate
small and in bitterness planted
between her teeth as she mediates -
speaking jewels with a breath of life
to a god far beyond the light

and he is amused

with a blackness that rots
he turns the fruit to ash
and has it as soot upon her lip

for the char is what he wants
the use of carbon
the blood gone black
and blown like dust
away, away from weeping women
and the frailty of words

as she “please” and “mercy”
and kneels upon her tongue
to make of him a king

and he decrees in his vanity

“ yes, take it
                        but cry
                                cry and make me
                        a god of life
                                                give me
                                                give me
                                                               soul”

(v)

regained in dampness it quickens,
sickened by its rheumy eye
as it takes in her whole

and she, being mother, holds it
makes it tender in her care
easy on the thorns
and tending to the twigs
as they wend up and delve
so deeply in her hair

​

​
the witch burns in water


(we noticed)

you were not
in work
this saturday

it is not
standard
procedure

(to remove
the eyes
from your head
& hide them
in the river)

& not call
to give us notice
so we
can arrange
some cover
for your shift

please
come tomorrow
at 11:30
to discuss
why
you felt

(the need
to give
your voice
away
to the function
of waves
& take up
the silence
of water
instead)

without
satisfactory
explanation

(the green
muddy
will not
make gods
of the unworthy)

your first
official warning
will be awarded

(like a mouth
full
of stones)

& we
will be
monitoring
your attendance

(in the weight
of rings
& the sincerity
of your fall)

​

Jennifer Wilson lives in Somerset, England, with her husband and spends her days as a faceless retail drone. Her work has appeared as a part of Molotov Cocktail's 2018 Shadow Poetry Award, the webzine from Fly on the Wall Press, and is forthcoming in Awkward Mermaid and the YANYR anthology from Rhythm & Bones Lit.

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