Three Poems

Edison Jennings

A Bed Reduced

A bed reduced to furniture waits on only death,
an unmoored river dory
to float the weathered body until its final breath,
its frame no longer shaken by throes of love and birth;
it couches but the dying
until they’re couched in earth.
But once the heart is cold and pallid flesh disposed,
then come again new lovers
to furl the lowered drapery and turn the linens rose.

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First published by Innisfree

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Strange Commerce

We hold strange commerce with the dead
and leave well-made their empty beds,
read their letters and their books,
and silver frame their younger looks
in fading color photographs
iced behind smudged sheets of glass,
and stash farragoes of their things—
watches, scarves, bracelets, and rings—
in boxes kept in closet corners,
keepsakes waiting other mourners
for when another will is read.
We hold strange commerce with the dead.

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First published by Innisfree

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Charon

Charon complains the living get it wrong.
He doesn’t punt his fares across the Styx,
but rows because the current is too strong
athwart his skiff cramped with its load of stiffs,
with no regard for beauty, class, or name.
As for the coins between their lips, he flips
them to the fish since the dead are all the same.
Does he ever tire of the to-and-fros?
He does not say. He only rows and rows.

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First published by Pulsebeat

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Edison Jennings lives in Southern Appalachia. He is a Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellow. His poetry has appeared in Boulevard, The Kenyon Review, Slate, The Southern Review, Southern Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. His poetry collection, Intentional Fallacies, and his chapbook, Reckoning, are available through Broadstone Press and Jacar Press, respectively. His most recent chapbook, Plumb Lines, is also available from Broadstone Press.

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Three Poems Edison Jennings

Three Poems

Edison Jennings