by Christine Jones

is what you said Sunday,
over the phone, speaking
from your small room where
all meals now are consumed &
lukewarm—half-pint milk cartons
collecting in the mini-fridge.

This, too, shall pass
is what you say, is
what you always say in times
like these, except now
to be positive means
something negative, means
you cannot leave & don’t know
if Delores, your friend, will be okay.
It means hours of Solitaire, visits on Zoom,
your nightgown worn late into the afternoon.

But notice the daffodils, you’d also say.
Their abundance. And look at the herring run,
you’d insist. The wonder of their will.

Your appetite has passed, and so has your penchant
for praying, giving way to sleep. You, today
in a hospital room, tired of tests, of tubes.
Still, you say This, too, shall pass.

And the goldfinch on the thistle.
His jaunty lisp.

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Christine Jones lives, writes, and swims along the shores of Cape Cod, MA. She is founder/editor-in-chief of Poems2go, a public poetry project, and an associate editor of Lily Poetry Review. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals including 32 poems, cagibi, Sugar House Review, Mom Egg Review, Salamander and elsewhere. Her debut book of poetry is Girl Without a Shirt (Finishing Line Press, 2020). cjonespoems.org

by Christine Jones

She wants to brag to her new assisted-living friend. She, who loves me big as the sky, who tells me look up when I’m in need of a prayer. She can’t know I’m lost and starless in Delhi. There's a cow at every turn, & in a hut in a hand in the film I watch at the national museum. A girl knocks on the car window. Could I learn to carry bricks on my head? A bushel of hay? Crossing off each day until we leave, I eat sugar crystals & fennel seeds, swim laps in a collegiate pool built for no team—chlorine, my tedious reprieve. I believe the world is smaller than it is. I’m not better than the beggar. My mother can’t hear this city chanting its mix of hymns, me reeling at the fringe. I’m grazing the blessed blue meadow of home in my mind, Mom, picking an iris for you.

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Christine Jones is author of the full-length poetry book, Girl Without a Shirt (Finishing Line Press, 2020). She’s also founder/editor-in-chief of Poems2go, a public poetry project, and an associate editor of Lily Poetry Review. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and online, including 32 poems, Sugar House Review, Blue Mountain Review, Ruminate, Mom Egg Review, cagibi, Literary Mama, and Salamander, as well as broadcasted on WOMR’s Poet’s Corner, and WCAI”s Poetry Sunday.