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My Skin, My Sanity
by Kat Duff
When I turned fifty, the only scar on my body was the thin trace of an incision on my right thumb where a doctor removed a sliver when I was nine
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How To Eat a Persimmon
by Patricia Wellingham-Jones
Wait
until it’s as squooshy
as the breast of a well-padded woman.
Pinch its bottom—
firm is good, soft is better.
Cup the fruit in your left hand
(lefties do the reverse),
pick up your spoon in the other.
A sterling silver teaspoon
deeply engraved or with elegant pattern
yields the most pleasure.
Touch the tip of the spoon
just below the nipple of the orange globe.
Push with intent. Break the skin.
Spoon the almost liquid flesh
into a small bowl. Using fingers,
rotate the fruit. Peel fragile petals,
scrape the custard from the skin.
Sever the stiff ribs, lay them
with the flesh. Dig the tip
of that silver spoon deep
into the base, twist out
the final scoops. Lay the emptied body
gently to rest. Wash your hands.
Carry the bowl as if it were made of gold
to your favorite chair. Lean back,
wave your spoon in a circle, sigh.
Lift the shimmering succulence to your lips,
roll it in your mouth, swallow
slowly. Do it again. Again.
Again.
Published in Edifice Wrecked, 2004
Soup Watch
by Patricia Wellingham-Jones
for Forest
I put down the phone,
pick up the knife,
smash garlic with the flat of the blade.
Chop carrots, potatoes, cabbage
with more vigor
than the task requires.
Onions give my eyes
an excuse to water.
I dump the vegetables
into the bubbling broth
from last night’s St. Patrick’s Day feast.
Add lentils and, at the very end,
corned beef cubes.
All morning while I dice and stir
I watch from afar over your hospital bed.
On the opposite side of the country,
hovered over by your children,
with the flowers I sent
placed in the ICU waiting room,
you slide gracefully
out of your body.
Cat Bones
by Patricia Wellingham-Jones
I like the feel
of their small bones:
the cat elbow dug
into my lying-down shin,
the flattened skull
that rests on the inside
of my shoulder,
thin ribs pulsing
vibration
in my cupped palm.
Oh yes, I enjoy
the velvet fur
of The Black One
and the rough thick pelt
of Camouflage Cat
but my heart shivers
at the knobby ridge of spine
under my sliding hand,
those little toes spread wide
kneading my arm,
the rumble of contentment
deep behind
the angled jaw,
the fragile frame
supporting
the alien mind.
Published in Rattlesnake Review, 2004
 Patricia Wellingham-Jones, Ph.D., R.N, a former psychology researcher and writer/editor, is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. She has had work published in numerous anthologies, journals, and Internet magazines, including Möbius, Red River Review, Rattlesnake Review, Phoebe, A Room of Her Own, Pebble Lake Review, Ink & Ashes, Thunder Sandwich, Edifice Wrecked and Niederngasse. Joining chapbooks which include Don’t Turn Away: Poems About Breast Cancer are her newest collections: California: Mountain & Stream Suite, Bags, SkyWords and Voices on the Land. Her website is www.wellinghamjones.com. |
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