Jacqueline Jules

Jack-O’-Lantern

Last Halloween, I felt so captive.

To the fevers, the falls,
the fear of leaving you alone
or bringing back a virus.

Now free to go out anytime, I do.

Shopping, movies, restaurants.

Only to return to the cavity
your presence once filled.

I turn on the TV
just to hear another voice.

The man on the screen forecasts
“trick or treat” weather.

But I already know how I’ll feel.

Like a pumpkin with the pulp scraped out.

My grin carved with a sharp knife.

The light inside, a candle
struggling to flicker.

Residual Fears

Every night my mother squeezed out
her kitchen sponge. Firmly. At least twice,
ensuring no excess water existed to attract ants,
an enemy that invaded her kitchen in droves
one summer when I was small.

While I don't remember the ants,
I do recall her scrubbing Formica counters
and checking under the sink with a flashlight.

Daily. For years.

Once, when I was twelve or thirteen,
I made my mother jump from bed,
on an April Fool’s morning.

She raced down the hall, pink nightgown
flapping on her bare feet to find
plastic ants on the kitchen floor.

A cruel adolescent joke, considering
my behavior now, five years after Covid,
still stocking toilet paper, still carrying a mask,
just in case I get caught in a crowd.

A Box of Organic Bulbs

I left you with the hospice aide,
nodding in front of the TV,
a fuzzy blue blanket warming your knees
while I stepped into the autumn air
carrying a box of organic bulbs
ordered in August, a week before                                                      
your wheelchair arrived.

Sitting on the cold ground with a trowel,
jabbing dirt dry from a week without rain,
I am acutely aware that your days of waking
on urine-soaked sheets will be over
by the time these flowers bloom.

And I don’t question why I’m digging holes today,
burying acorn-sized hopes for colorful crocus
to cheer me in the spring.

 

Murder Mystery Light

After you retired, we began
watching crime shows. Though not
dark noir with cynical characters
brooding in bleak cities.

We liked our murder mysteries light.

Witty chat between colleagues,
donning blue plastic gloves
to examine the evidence.

Sometimes, a little sexual tension.

Best, a quirky main character
figuring out “who done it” from
a simple detail no one else saw.

Most of our favorites are off the air.
Some ended. Others got cancelled.

And without you, I can’t
seem to find new ones. Shows
with that mix of mystery
and mirth we loved so much.

Turning off the TV tonight,
I realize it’s the banter I miss the most.

The back and forth between two people
who care for each other but like to tease.

Conversations in the quiet,
sharing thoughts with someone
always by your side.  

 

Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021), Itzhak Perlman's Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press, and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in over 100 journals. Visit her online at www.jacquelinejules.com.