I.S. Jones
Night Baptism
1. Equinox
My mother calls her guardian angels out of her palms. They spill from her mouth in splinters of fire. It is almost 11 & the clock resets its face to let the dark hour pour over us. Restless spirits pull themselves from the vain tooth of darkness, but my mother casts them in a coconut. Says they confuse the meat & milk for a woman’s body. We ride to the end of the neighborhood. Cross the street. Pours holy water over & chants seven jehovahs to the wind. She puts a white veil over my face. Cracks the coconut’s skull & tells me to run: “You are not allowed on this side of the street anymore. Or else they’ll follow you home”.
2. Solstice
We pray into a basin of salt & water / this is how we mimic the ocean / in the bible jesus casts angry spirit to a gathering of pigs / says they confuse the pigs for human flesh / this is why we don’t invite into our body that which the faceless rage calls home / Mother opens the sink & out comes small howls / covers our heads in white sheets for prayer / this make us into ghosts / bends candle fire / asks for angels to come in our midst / opens us for delivery / fills us with water & howls / white sheets wander the night
I.S. Jones is an American-Nigerian poet, educator, and music journalist from Southern California by way of New York. She is a fellow with BOAAT Writer’s Retreat, Callaloo, and is a Graduate Fellow with The Watering Hole. Jones is Assistant Editor at Voicemail Poetry as well as Managing Editor at Dead End Hip Hop. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, The Harpoon Review, The Blueshift Journal, SunDog Lit, Matador Review, great weather for MEDIA, The Offing, Anomalous Press, The Shade Journal, Puerto Del Sol, Nat.Brut, and elsewhere.
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