Lot's Wife Edition 1 2016

POETRY
Old Bones
by Ed Jessop
She was his Delilah:
his blue-eyed
blonde haired
beauty.
She’d only recently moved in with him,
and while she had taken to waking Him up with kisses,
He was busy making a habit of softly singing Queen’s Delilah to her as she fell asleep.
Often, He would cup her head in both hands and pour Himself into the pools of her eyes.
He would whisper – seemingly to Himself – how He loved her.
He went to work each weekday and would often be
reminded of her by the golden hairs which managed to
cling to the folds of His shirt.
He thought of her:
His archaeologist
beauty,
and what findings she would surprise Him with when he came home.
Perhaps it would be another old Pokémon card,
a chipped red monopoly hotel,
or a stuffed toy He’d loved as a kid but had long since forgotten.
She would listen quietly as usual,
wonder bright within her eyes.
She loved that each new item she brought Him would illicit a different response:
a smile, a story.
She eagerly dug deeper.
Mid-August,
her latest discovery had been a luminescent rib – too thick to be avian,
yet too fragile for anything of agriculture.
This time
she watched as the landscape of His face grew cloudy
shaded by shadows of concealed storms.
this time
there was no smile
no story
and He didn’t even let her keep it
for fear of her pearly white teeth.
curious and slightly irritated she scoured the garden more often
56 | Lot’s Wife