THE LOVE SONG OF JESSICA I. BOSTWICK

BOSTWICK

I took some time to wrap the thing, removing dead deserted dreams—

Constantly checking on the clock,

Measuring every tick and tock,

Tapping two teaspoons to the box,

Shaking out more from my wristwatch—

Suddenly it dawns on me that I have spent eternity. 

A little here a little there, perhaps too much upon my hair—

Most on lovers much unworthy, dare I tell the judge and jury,

That instead of Michelangelo, I had them come and go?

Unpacked across the River Styx, all I have to show is this.

IF DEATH COMES FOR ME

BOSTWICK

If Death comes for me, 

Don’t let him in for free, 

Offer him some tea, 

Should he ask about, 

Tell him I am out. 

Say he’s called too soon, 

Can’t this afternoon, 

Or tell him he’s late. 

Different day our date. 

Though I do not fear, 

Him an old friend dear, 

Now that I’m alive, 

I don’t want to die. 

So should death come for me, 

Don’t let him in for free. 

THE KITCHEN

BOSTWICK

When I am old the kitchen will not matter, 

After the pitter patter of many feet, 

As I lay dying, will I stare in god’s face, 

Say, “He did not like the way I arranged the place”? 

Stand I victorious on the battlefield, 

Over the washing machine in the pantry, 

Peanut butter and cans of tomato sauce, 

Spoils of war won but the relationship lost. 

How is it in the same tongue we are lost? 

My mother tongue becomes mangled in your mouth, 

You tell me the Germans should have won the war, 

In the end, we put it in a different drawer. 

JUST DUST

BOSTWICK

I went into the memory– 

on a search for written reverie! 

But it went cold, 

It was too old. 

The liquor on your lips– 

The devil’s vice like grip, 

My sick and grasping fingertips! 

They were long gone, 

No longer strong. 

Diamond blues of a deep c, 

Did not ring or sing for me. 

Measured out in minor keys, 

Flat and distant memories. 

No midnight rush 

or candy crush– 

Just quiet hush. 

Lust dead– just dust. 

HEARTBROKEN, IN DISREPAIR

BOSTWICK

Come on baby, break my heart, 

Come honey, tear me apart, 

I've been waiting for you, 

Since I was twenty-two,

When you left me heartbroken, in disrepair. 

Burn me with wildfire, 

Hurt me hot with desire, 

Cut me so I bleed, 

Nick me so I need, 

Leave me heartbroken, in disrepair. 

This sickness I need– 

Devil, I believe– 

God may forgive me, 

Tomorrow, we'll see, 

If you leave me heartbroken, in disrepair. 

THE RIVER

BOSTWICK

I took my rage to the river, 

I poured my pain in the river, 

Washed it all in the river, 

Drowned it all in the river. 

Took a bottle of whisky, 

A pack of cheap cigarettes, 

With me down to the river, 

Still I shook and I shivered. 

My rage filled the river, 

It was all I could see, 

My pain flowed like water, 

And mixed with the sea. 

SLEEP

BOSTWICK

Sleep, you second cousin of

Death, please come to me.

Feed me from your moon lit

Bosom, the opium dream.

Kiss me for I fear thy cousin,

Her immortal night–

lingers longer than your delight.

HOPE IS A FEATHERED THING

BOSTWICK

Hope is a feathered thing—

Inside my breast, ribcage and chest.

Oh! Can you hear how she sings? For Hope is a feathered thing.

LOST AT SEE

BOSTWICK

I wonder if he saw me see,

In his eyes an emerald sea.

The center brown but all around,

Are specs of gold dust that abound,

And scattered there a starry night,

of shattered emeralds in the light.

SHOULD THE SUN FALL

BOSTWICK

When midnight comes and you’re asking for me,

When the moon is full and you’re on your knees,

When you’re calling my name into the breeze,

If you start crying, don’t worry for me. 

If the sun should fall and the moon not rise,

and you must travel through the starless sky,

I hope I left a candle in your heart,

So you are not lost alone in the dark.

HIDING UNDERNEATH OF MY HAT

BOSTWICK

Maybe I can just watch from the back,

Sitting pretty, all dressed in black.

I have to put my lover back on the shelf,

so I can go and find myself,

because he's perfectly poison.

I'm fine until he gets to the end,

I'm reserved, thinking he's just a friend,

and then he plays that song,

Now my world's gone wrong.

I turned left when I should have turned right,

My body and mind- they start to a fight,

I’m crying and it’s ruining my night–

Hiding underneath of my hat,

I thought I could just watch from the back.

UNDER THE HOT SUN

BOSTWICK

Grass is growing under hot sun,

Beating down, beating down on me.

Dust is rising towards the hot sun,

Memory, beating down on me.

How that man he made me,

How that man he left me,

Under the blood red moon,

Under the red black moon.

You left me under the hot sun,

You left me without no one,

With the dust rising up on me,

With dusk rising up on me.

CARRY ME HOME

BOSTWICK

Papa he left me. 

After he swung low and took that chariot home, they hurt me.

Papa he left me.

Heaven went straight to hell.

Mama she don’t care.

A broken bird can’t fly across the sea.

I think I’ll marry a man who sings the blues,

so he can tell god a thing or two.

I got addicted.

I lost my faith.

Who will come to carry me home?

TROUBLED

BOSTWICK

June used to cut me—

The summers gut me,

Dancing with your ghost—

Alone on the coast.

When you left I packed

up loneliness, stacked

up my earthly charms—

Your blood in my arms.

It’s hard to unpack—

Grandma’s old dresses,

Mother’s dark tresses,

Our old addresses.

While you sleep under grass I crash 

here on earth, for death and dirt do I yearn—

My skin burned under sun—

stretched out on your grave.

My day it will come—

But pray while I’m young,

heavens gates keep their locks,

And I stop troubled talk.

THE SYCAMORE

BOSTWICK

One winter when we were younger, before summer lay her under, 

Prudence placed my writing desk in the spot where she thought best– 

    Dragging it along the floor, we faced it toward the sycamore, 

Where she wanted to be buried, hoping, wishing, Death could carry, 

Sacred secrets between sisters, how she feared that I would miss her– 

There, beneath the sycamore. 

Now it is with winter worry, sitting, thinking, with a fury,

Looking out into the past, through the study’s shattered glass, 

    Rain falls on the floor, as I am haunted by the sycamore,

Is it that I let her curse me? My dear sister who once nursed me, 

Back from a sickness which she lacked but then did her this plague attack– 

Stop! I drink and pace the floor. 

How I wish she would have waited, How her death it left me fated– 

To watch mother waste away, hear the things her eyes could say, 

    Selfish Prudence always sleeping, there! Under the sycamore. 

How she hated me, Prudence! Said, “Murderess, how could you do this?’ 

Mother hate me, father maybe. You! There beneath the sycamore. 

Wait, what is that at the door? 

Do I hear a gentle weeping, or is it the wind come sweeping? 

Was I just asleep before, dreaming Prudence at the door? 

    I call out but not a word, the witching hour undisturbed, 

Only the sound of falling rain, comes through the broken  windowpanes, 

Yet swear I heard the faintest sound, as if from somewhere underground, 

Prudence woke and started speaking, must just be the old house creaking, 

As I watch the sycamore.