PROSE POETRY
JERICHO HOCKETT
YOUR ALTAR ON THE MANTLE
Keep it hot—fire reflected in three candles: red to light when your daughter requires it, orange to burn when you give thanks, green to catch the striking match, the scent verbena and lime. For balance, a fish tank full of holy water. You’ll learn a funeral rite: keep a net nearby because sometimes a fish will die. You’ll lead processions to the compost heap, your daughter’s booted feet in your footsteps through the snow. When you say Help me carry wood and we’ll remember fishy by the fires, her prayer for the dead will be a shout: And let’s drink hot cocoa!
Jericho Hockett's roots are in the farm in Kansas, and she blooms in Topeka with Eddy and Evelynn. She is a poet, social psychologist, teacher, forever student, and dreamer, most whole in the green. Some of her poems appear in Snakeroot: A Midwest Resistance ‘Zine, Pussy Magic Heals, and South Broadway Ghost Society. More works are always brewing.
