Patricia Spears Jones

The Devil’s Wife remembers the good times

He was handsome. He talked to me. To me. To me. He talked to me.
He didn’t say stupid stuff about my breasts or my ass, he asked me 
What do you read? I was reading magazines & romance novels &
Whatever we was supposed to read in high school – Silas Marner,
Yes, I read Silas Marner. He was grumpy I remember but he had
To care for a girl and that made him better. Do you think a girl
Can make a man better asked the Devil? Truefully, I answered
I don’t know. He smiled. He talked some more. He was handsome.
His voice was that soft wind in early spring, the wind that brings
earth & grass & blossoming trees-sweet or funky to the nose – 
the earth smells Human & his voice was that smell.  
Some call this Musk? But, it was too floral, too pungent, plowed
over soil, not animal, but animal would I see when
The Devil’s voice boomed out thunder and shook my heart.

The devil is beating his wife ‘cause she couldn’t cook him no rice

The devil’s wife is boiling a big black pot of water. The devil clears his throat. The devil’s wife is
looking for rice. The pantry is filled with barley, corn, colorful beans some spotted, some
Striped, but where, where is the rice? She opens a pink and gold tin taken from a ship sailing
From India. No rice. No rice, but mouse droppings. Hadn’t she heard the mice, skittering.
Damn! No rice. No. rice. No rice. The devil is calling her name. The devil is very hungry. 
And as he hollers lightning strikes the valley’s trees, thunder blossoms wide across it. And yet,
The sun is shining as clouds mass. Rays pattern the brightening sky. The devil’s wife is frantic.
She knows this amplification. She reads the patterns. Anxiety rises on rivers waters, atop ancient
lakes. Rose petals spread white and pink across impeccable lawns distant from the back roads.
The devil commences the beating, hollering and smacking his thin-faced crying wife, thrice
No rice. No rice. No rice. The sun shines as rain petals the wide-open un mowed playground
Where children chant the devil’s slap swinging ropes for a wet round of pick up double-dutch.

Note: title is a jump rope rhyme

Patricia Spears Jones is an African American poet, writer, cultural activist. She is the 2017 recipient of the Jackson Poetry Prize and is author of A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems and nine other poetry collections and two musical plays were commissioned and produced by Mabou Mines. She's written art reviews for tribes.org and reviews theater, music, fashion and literature. She is the organizer of American Poets Congress, on the Advisory Board of Jackleg Press, and is Emeritus Fellow for Black Earth Institute. She lives in Brooklyn.