POETRY

Jonathan Fletcher 

                         CREDITS: OWEN GENT 

EUNUCH

In my case there was no castration: no slave of

the king pinned me down as the others washed 

my lower half with pepper salt, bound my

thighs and abdomen. No sharpened knife cut

into me as they ripped. No tube entered me

to help me urinate as my skin burned, healed.

Yet, every now and then, I wonder whether the

eunuchs had easier lives. Though often yoked 

to the shoulder poles of the royal litters they 

carried, they also served as the bathers and 

barbers, messengers and porters, to the rulers.

They even used their trust to rise to high office.

But I have no interest in power. Instead, I want

to march in a parade of rainbow-colored flags 

and floats, confetti and banners. I want to help 

carry one striped in black and gray, white and

purple. One that, in large letters, reads: NOT 

SEX-STARVED, NOT EVEN HUNGRY FOR IT.

Maybe one day I’ll get to ride with my kind on 

a float of our own, will, like the rulers carried 

in their gilded litters by porters, wave to the 

crowd, elicit its cheers. That’s the closest to a 

king as I need to feel. Shouldn’t every eunuch, 

though, be, at least once, treated like royalty?

LAZARUS

My family insisted I was ill. Of their brother,

Lazarus, Mary and Martha thought the 

same. But I wasn’t sick. Or dead. I often 

felt so, though, pictured myself prone: 

eyes gently closed, body washed, 

anointed with nard, aloes, myrrh. 

Hands and feet bound together, 

strips of linen for ties, face covered with 

cloth, all of me wrapped in a shroud.

Lazarus, entombed, decomposing, could not

speak. Neither could I, else my news cause

my family pain, tears. Like Martha and

Mary, they’d weep. I needed a miracle. 

I got one. Mine, though, didn’t come from 

Nazareth, walk on water, cure the blind. 

Instead, I was saved by a multitude: 

men and women, neither and in-between, 

partnered and single, colorful as a rainbow. 

I listened to them as they shared their stories.

Denial and acceptance, shame and pride. 

No journey the same yet alike in revelation: 

a closet reeks as much as a tomb. 

Unable to stay in mine, I, like Lazarus, 

rose, walked, came out. Freed from

graveclothes, blessed with new family,

I turned back to look at my tomb: small,

dark, and silent. And never did so again. 

          

                                             

Originally from San Antonio, Texas, Jonathan Fletcher currently resides in New York City, where he is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in Poetry at Columbia University