Jackals, Jesus, and Butterflies
Three poems from the Cajun country of western Louisiana.
Jackal Song
Clever as ever, they arrive earlier every evening.
One melting one way, a blur for another,
they breed with wolves, give birth to hybrids;
they poach the pets you’ve named and have come to know.
One melting one way, a blur for another,
they herald hunger and the coming of the antichrist.
They poach the pets you’ve named and have come to know.
Used to be the dogs could bark them back to the fields.
They herald hunger and the coming of the antichrist.
Immune to the sound of shotguns,
used to be the dogs could bark them back to the fields.
Now, they stalk in figure-eight formations.
Immune to the sound of shotguns,
they watch you cover traps with twigs and leaves.
Now, they stalk in figure-eight formations.
To think our tinkering has led them to this—
They watch you cover traps with twigs and leaves.
They breed with wolves, give birth to hybrids.
To think our tinkering has led them to this—
Clever as ever, they arrive earlier every evening.
Contraflow
All roads lead us backward,
including the ones that led us in
in the beginning.
Even the gas can man with dreadlocks preaches:
we can’t fight what we can’t see, so why try.
The others are arriving already to take our place.
Our cities, too, when the time comes,
will one day mandate we make it out by nightfall.
We’re like these stalled civilians
rubbernecking and reflecting
on the median near Saint Ann’s.
A dead owl, with its wings spread full span,
haunts the bare feet of a concrete Jesus
who’s missing a second opened hand.
In its place is a Post-It note that reads:
I want you to be my hand.
Pedestrians form a circle,
but no one steps forward
to meet in the middle.
No back road is ever lit enough
to show the way to living lighter lives.
Likewise, never is the night dark enough
to mistake the crow perched on a mile marker
for what we learn to leave behind in time,
or for what we can’t let go.
The Insignificant
On Sunday,
it was the blue and black butterfly I watched
wink wings against the soft, green dawn.
Days after, a hummingbird hovered
so close to my nose
I could smell the sugar
coursing through its threaded bloodstream.
There’s nothing more significant
about the remainder of the week,
except the three wasps that arrived
to tickle the wind chimes.
Hillary Joubert received his MA and MFA degrees from McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where he has been teaching English for the past seventeen years. In addition to his poetry having received a generous Louisiana Division of the Arts Fellowship award and a Ruth Lily Fellowship nomination, it has appeared in Mockingheart Review, Provo Canyon Review, The Golden Key, Kweli, and other journals.