Jules Jacob

Strychnine Tree
August 21, 2020 Jacob Jules

Strychnos nux vomica
Strychnine Tree

 
 

It is not yet too late for the rescue.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rappaccini’s Daughter

 
 
Stranger under this love-sick tree, lapful of terminal clusters
remove your white shirt and nickel-sized buttons, trace
their velvety smoothness from my collarbone to sacrum.
Tongue these semen seeds through our clenched mouths
and teeth, waterboard closed throats until we’re swallowed.
We’ll hymn benevolent lies until there’s an antidote
to our natures, until we come ‘round right as we can be.

Jules Jacob is the author of three collections including Kingdom of Glass & Seed (Lily Poetry Review Books, October 2023) and Rappaccini’s Garden (White Stag Publishing, August 2024), an illustrated collection of poisonous plant poems co-authored with Sonja Johanson. Jules’ poems, author interviews, features, and book reviews appear or are forthcoming in Tupelo Quarterly, Plume, Lily Poetry Review, Rust + Moth, Laurel Review, Poetry is Bread and elsewhere. Jules is an Emeritus Master Gardener, recipient of a fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Auvillar, France and former Court Appointed Special Advocate for abused and neglected children.