Three Poems by Jessica Weyer Bentley

 

The Tender Transformation

 

My little talisman,

my sun god,

offered to me,

rosy and wailing.

transforming my acuity,

cataclysm of truth,

revealing my courage in this brittle state.

You wielded the mirror,

my vision bulbous,

labour bringing me in,

I grazed the grim reaper with my brass neck.

In that moment under the harsh florescence,

the room stood aglow.

I dove into the Heavens through my womb,

grasping my talisman,

my molecules in another form,

yielding wonders,

keeping my life.

The Virtue of Bathsheba

 

May I return to soft ringlets,

gilded,

the air stroke my cheek as the mare raced the fields.

Before the grey,

the mundane day after scathing day,

when the hour stretched,

supple complexion of adolescence free from the scorched sun,

an innocent force shielded from sarcasm and humiliation.

Let me retreat beneath the umber horizon,

where the magician’s hand has yet to disclose the deception,

guarding myself in the beauty of naïveté,

where hope’s chord has yet to fray.

 

 

The Mourning of Fille

 

Oh! Daddy!

There are monsters,

whispering beneath my bed,

darkening a grieving cerebellum.

They lounge in wait,

beneath dark canopies.

Xanax and Fentanyl fail to remove the stain.

You abandoned me,

a barren time.

The longing expands.

Daddy,

the monsters are mine.

They dine on a throbbing aorta.

Shall I be ready?

Lead the calvary!

March with me across the wheat-grass fields.

Check beneath my bed.

Daddy,

read my epitaph.

I peer upon the cyan door.

Jessica Weyer Bentley is an author, poet, and photographer. Her first collection of poetry, Crimson Sunshine, was published in May 2020 by AlyBlue Media. Her chapbook, Down Below Where the Canary Sings, was published May 2, 2023 by Sage Owl Publishing in Massachusetts. She has contributed work to several publications for the Award-Winning Book Series, Grief Diaries, including Poetry and Prose, and Hit by a Drunk Driver. Jessica’s work has been anthologized in Women Speak Vol. 6 (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions), Summer Gallery of Shoes (Highland Park Poetry), Common Threads 2020 and 2022 Editions (Ohio Poetry Association), Pegasus 2022 Journal (Kentucky State Poetry Society) Appalachian Witness Volume 24 and Appalachian Unmasked Volume 25 (Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel) and Made and Dream (Of Rust and Glass) 2021 and 2022. She has been published in several publications by Alien Buddha Press including anthologies and magazines. She has contributed work to online blogs including Global Poemic, Lotherian Journal, Dead Mule School of Southern Literature and was a Wolfpack contributor for the online journal, Fevers of the Mind. Jessica currently resides in Northwest Ohio.