Tomorrow, after we check out of the Carlton Circle
Inn, Felix will change our sheets. For now,
his strong fingers stack bleached towels with smiles.
He says, Trusted friends on Lake Shore Drive
will bury me alive in a cleansing ritual.
I’ve done this before.
Mornings at 8:30, a Wampanoag American
Indian faces the Great Eastern Sun, feet rooted
to earth she stands unwavering two hours
on the grave of her son’s placenta. Felix says,
her boy was shot in the head at a Boston rock
concert, his head turned east, body northwest.
He was seventeen.
Our breath was one, Felix continues,
The giant snapping turtle at Jenkins Pond
ate the white swan’s babies. In two years,
I will eat this turtle; it has seven kinds of protein.
He is larger than all our shadows. He is earth.
Evenings, the shaman faces the western setting sun,
her arms lift prayers.
A sign at the Falmouth Main St. Lube
reminds: Do Not Be Afraid, Only Live.
Years pass, searching across Jenkins Pond
for Felix and the ancient snapping turtle.
—
Poet, artist, instructor, Clarissa Jakobsons, earned a B.F.A. from Kent State University, twice featured poet in Paris, at The Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore, and won First Place at the Akron Art Institute New Words Competition. Her 2023 poem from Baltic Amber in a Chest received a Pushcart nomination. She writes, “Don’t be surprised to see my inner artist kicking sandcastles, climbing Mount Diablo, painting Provincetown dunes, or walking under an Ohio crescent moon.”
