Arthritis

The thing nips at my heels,
jumps up and claws my knees.
I lie down, but the beast follows me,
growls and barks, whining
at my bedside hour after hour.

There he’ll remain the whole night
muzzle on my thigh,
whimpering, keeping watch,
making sure I can’t leave,
as if that were an option.

My ankles groan like pine
floorboards beneath
centuries-old feet,
every step
like dipping into a lake
of fire, a burn fed by an acid
in the blood
that eats my bones.

Night Fright

How can I explain what goes on in my bedroom every night? I lie down on the four poster bed. I close my eyes, then everything shifts, explodes! Ten minutes earlier I’d been nodding over a book, placid, relaxed. Now I’m wide awake. Thoughts start up, then begin to run in circles, like a dog chasing its own tail. Worries fuse into one long Möbius strip. My head is a music hall where the orchestra has been tuning up too long. The very walls begin to vibrate from the forces inside my brain. It’s as if there’s a rattle from a faraway train about to enter a tunnel. The floorboards can feel it. The train is always approaching, always just around the bend. Like cats sense a tsunami, my arms and legs know the train is coming, and I jerk back just in time. Every time. A scintillation of red pain scales its way down my left leg, starting at my thigh. It meets the persistent throb of my knee, ends in the hot asphalt of burning soles. When I turn on my left side, I hear the clunk and grind of shoulder enjambment. I mean impingement, though I love the idea of my shoulder as a line of hypermetric verse swerving around the shoulder joint like an Army jeep or a red Nissan pickup caught in a roundabout. The one pinprick of light in this room comes from the bathroom nightlight. It casts a tiny beam of gold on the sink, the vanity. I find it reassuring. The bathroom has its own jazz combo of voices. There’s the efficient metronome of the green-faced travel alarm clock (yes, I have a clock in the bathroom), the snare drum whirl of the fan over the commode, the saxophone blast of a space heater left on all night. My haven. Warmth. Warmth! Must I leave this room and go back in there? Do I have to? There’s no one here to give me permission, so I ask the African violet sitting on the window sill. No answer. I pick up the hand mirror, a cymbal longing to be played. My bedroom is in the middle of the South China Sea on the other side of the world. My bed is a raft laced together by bamboo nightmares. I peek out from my Quonset hut behind the bathroom door. Do I have to leave? It’s silent in here and there’s light. I peer out at the bedroom. I can’t go back in there. I never know what’s there. There’s no one to radio to find out. I have got to get some sleep: I have an 8 o’clock class tomorrow. I’ll just roll up one of these towels for a pillow. Maybe I’ll sleep in the tub tonight.

Jill Jennings, a retired teacher and journalist, is the author of three full-length poetry books: The Poetry Alarm Clock (2008), Dead Man’s Flower (2012), and Pineapple Wine: Poems of Maui (2019). Her poems have been published in The Atlanta Review, Oberon Poetry Magazine, Calamaro, Reach of Song (Georgia Poetry Society), Encore (The National Federation of State Poetry Societies), and Poetry of the Golden Generation (Kennesaw State University). Her work has been featured on Kinver Radio in the U.K. Originally from Georgia, she lives with her husband in in Fort Myers, Florida.

Header image entitled, Allegiance, by Darrell Black