The mosaic floor in the bed chamber depicted scene after scene of war, violence, and death. It was a fitting aesthetic appreciation for the queen, who waited for news—any news—and traced the warm sunlight setting across the tiled artwork. Myrrh burned. The scent of the incense was a sweet and welcome distraction from what was to come.

“Word from the battle, my queen,” a foot soldier huffed at the end of his run. “Your son, the king, has fallen by Jehu’s hand.” He caught his breath in the moments waiting for his queen’s response.

“And what of Jehu?” The queen turned toward her balcony, unwilling to show whatever reaction her face may convey.

More calm but still ensconced in his duty, the foot soldier spoke again. “He rides for Jezreel. He will be at the palace by sundown.”

The battle had been lost to the dowager queen’s peril. A loss made worse still by the approaching usurper. Though feather-bedded and gilded in fineries, her life had been one of political unrest and religious tumult. It came to her as no surprise that her end should be of a similar kind.

Behind dingy cellophane,

the photograph in the family album

encases me, where I grimace like I’m behind bars—

lips stretched taut across gritted teeth,

eyes plaintive, fixing my father, the resident cameraman,

asking any witness not to believe

the bottom half of my face.

My age, ten,

my hair, mostly brushed, my pantsuit, floral,

a K-Mart layaway acquisition,

my hands, clutching a certificate reading

“Honorable Mention.”

A bone thrown by the school district arts committee,

a pack of energetic, under-employed moms who

anoint the preteen illuminati each spring.