Two Poems
My Uncle Pisses in the Street in Protest
Kenneth has his pecker out
again. We can see him
from the window, twisting his hips
in a drunk dance, or maybe
it’s from crack. His ass is almost
out, which makes him sing
louder, though God knows what song,
except maybe the Drones across
the street, as he is pissing
toward their house. If he falls,
it will be into their rose
bush. Someone says they hope
he will, that he’ll get a prick
for being one, adding:
it’s a wonder he doesn’t know
why he’s not invited
to these things. We’re surprised
no one has called the cops
and that his bladder has not
emptied yet. Like a goddamned
race horse, someone says.
Mom would be ashamed.
My Uncle Goes to Kentucky
for cheap smokes, because he stopped
drinking whiskey. He lingers in the station,
thumping a pack against his palm
as he tells the attendee he’s married
to the antichrist, tells
the attendee she taught his parrot
to call him a pussy. You gonna cry
now, little man? The bird is an excellent
mimic of his wife. She’s Satan,
he says. She never wears pants,
and he used to like that, but her legs
are skin and bone now,
and she likes to pick the scabs on them
with one foot on the coffee table, dripping
blood onto the carpet. He doesn’t know
what she has, but he must have it
too. He says last year he thought
it was Hep-C, but didn’t know
how to tell—what you lost
first: your liver or your pecker.
He cried about it in front
of the bird. Pussy. Cry, little man,
went through his house for an hour.
He tells the attendee he may jump
into the Ohio on his way home. Better
that than to sleep with the devil. Ain’t
that right? Ain’t that right,
my man? He assures the attendee
she was normal once, but the prince
of darkness comes in all sorts of forms.
He’s a fallen away Catholic, only went
to church for the wine, doesn’t know
a damn thing about exorcisms, and he left
Lucifer on the couch in his oversized
work shirt, the one with the hole
in the armpit. He was sure he’d woken
to her, sitting on his stomach, wearing
nothing but that shirt, drawing
a pentagram on his chest
the night before. She spoke
in tongues on a daily basis.
It was too late for him. He’d signed
the papers and wifed the devil
July of last year. Never sign
the papers, he warns, slapping seven
dollars against the attendee’s hand.
El Diablo will take your soul
and the house, and even the damned bird,
and you won’t even know you wanted
that bird until he’s gone.
Whittney Jones is completing her MFA at Murray State University. She lives in Harrisburg, Illinois, with her husband and works as a Project Next Generation mentor at the town’s public library. She has work published or forthcoming in Zone 3, the minnesota review, Revolution House, The Jet Fuel Review, The Hartskill Review, and Parable Press.