Jennifer Pons
Jennifer Pons lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest, where she teaches writing at a community college. Her poems appear in Portland Review (forthcoming), Ninth Letter, Mom Egg Review, CutBank, Whale Road Review, and others. She was a finalist for the Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry and the Pamet River Prize, and a semifinalist for the Black River Chapbook Competition. She has been nominated for Best Spiritual Literature twice and holds MFA’s from both the University of Arizona and Seattle Pacific University.
Eulogy Never Given
For M.C.
Mary was stabbed in the chest
and found in an alley
by a woman walking her dog.
Days later, her mother went to mass
holding The Book of Hours against
her chest. The papers omitted
that Mary was a stripper
but the girls talked about
this at school. And her mother
couldn’t save her. And I never
saw her father cry.
Mary was my friend
until she decided not to be.
Once, she said The Book of Hours
spoke of figs and wasps
and the hidden petals blooming
with scent inside. She said it spoke
of scented women, loving wasps
like bees. I wanted to drive
to the desert and sit amidst
hundreds of hummingbirds––
their wings whirring and whirring
and whirring. I wanted to dance
and eat palm-sized figs.
Mary said The Book of Hours
was celestial-seeking that could
save us from our bodies.
And our book became smeared
with lip gloss and spit. And
our book delivered
new sounds about God
in love with death.
And in the desert of my dreams, ants
swarmed a barrel cactus
and the ooze of nectar
made us thirsty, scenting
our tongues. We buried
our letters and a rosary beneath
the sand. We danced
as an act of our middle, singing
I am not made of your rib.
I heard Mary say this to the figs:
Book of Hours, quiet my flesh.
I am not made of rib
or wasp or wing.
Mary’s body, stuffed with thirst
and petals, was buried like a letter.
The blood that left her
watered the desert cactus.
Mary never said the truth
has appeared in the world––
The truth is
we are the liars and the proof.
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