Belly of the Whale

It’s the belly of August,
and we’ve spent all our money
on school supplies
and school clothes
and electricity
to beat the heat,

but it could be worse,
I remind myself
as I pass
a weathered,
paint-peeling,
wood-frame house

with all the windows open,
weeds grown up to the eaves,
and twenty cloth diapers
strung out on a line –
oh yes,
it could be worse.

Tortoise

Eve stood, naked in the garden, and
closed her fist around the last soft
bit of fleshy ripe fruit, squeezing the succulent
pulp, forcing the juice of knowledge between
her fingers to drip down her wrist and
forearm to the ground God walked upon – so this
was how it was going to be? Really? An eternity
for a few mere seconds of simply wanting
to know God better? An eternity for simply aching
to see God more intimately? An eternity for breaking
just one of God’s rules, put in place to keep her
in her place, set apart, from him? The punishment
was too extreme, she knew this fully and well, but
hers was a jealous God, and she was smaller and
weaker and slower than he, yet she
would carry this new, separate Eternity
on her back forever, like a Tortoise
shouldering her world, hopeful. And when
Eternity runs out, finally, she whispered
through fruit-scented breath, surely, surely,
would he let her know him, then?

Jessica Isaacs’ poetry has been published in several journals and anthologies, most recently including Cybersoleil, Sugarmule, and Elegant Rage. “Belly of the Whale” and “Tortoise” are poems from her current book-in-progress, deep August. She has presented her poetry at the National and Regional Pop Culture / American Culture Conferences, Scissortail Creative Writing Festivals, Full Circle Bookstore, Woody Guthrie Festivals, and Howlers & Yawpers Creativity Symposiums. She is an English and Humanities Professor at Seminole State College, and makes her home in Prague, Oklahoma with her one husband, two kids, two dogs, four cats, three fish, and a variety of snails.