By the Watermelons

By The Watermelons 

Inspired by Elizabeth Bradfield’s Touchy

I sold my soul to the devil

For a picket fence and a

tax refund and a 

stimulus check and a

used car with a hundred thousand miles–

more miles than I will ever drive.

And now my soul 

Is not where souls belong. 

When he killed her, they sent her body

in a pine coffin wrapped in plastic,

back home, 

to the icy waters of the Atlantic

and the heat of an honest embrace.

My soul is buried in grandma’s garden,

right by the watermelons

that never germinated. 

It is stumped there

Under the scorching sun that

makes the skin tingle and then

blister and burn. 

I reach out to this little 

soul of mine when I am feeling 

particularly resentful for her absence. 

I just need to see if she is still there, 

even if half dead, because

out here I am half dead, too.

I pray fervently, dramatically,

as a last resource, just so maybe

someone can tell me 

That one day it will all make sense.

And it will rain in my grandma’s desertic hometown, 

a downpour that will drench me 

head to toe, and will wash 

the crosses in the cemetery until their marble

glimmers in the sun.

Then, I will dig my broken soul up

from my grandma’s garden, and

mourn when I see her bones.

I’ll patch her up and stick her back 

in my hollow body, and 

everything will grow within me,

Including the watermelons that

Never germinated.