Megan Jones: Two Poems
Ophelia’s Video Selfie
Act 1
Green girl
in a garden.
A girl, a veil
of green.
Videos in the garden
direct how I’m to be
or not
to be
seen.
Act 2
Dear Hamlet,
Hi,
Eff you.
Act 3
For every forty-two selfies
I edit three:
The bare ankle,
DM’d to thee.
The folded hands:
my father’s inbox.
The smile for Laertes.
Act 4
You uploaded my ankle
to Instagram:
“Get thee to a nunnery.”
And the worst:
“slut”
Act 5
They say it was love,
turned me half-mad:
For you, I tore out half
my hair
and sang pop ballads.
Act 6
For you, I used a public washroom
barefoot,
I beat sleek outlines of men
with a half-opened umbrella.
Act 7
My father went mad,
raging softly
in the velvet folds
of nightclubs.
Act 8
You tried to halve him, too.
Act 9
The eternal observer, you
see us fall
endlessly and
artistically out of trees,
impale ourselves
neatly
on pointed sticks, poison
our lovers’ clean ears.
So measured, considerate,
our tragedies.
Act 10
I am eternally considerate,
tragic, and
bored;
Denmark, a prison.
My iPhone, taken
for evidence.
Act 11
Rosencrantz said,
I can replace
it for $200
on Craigslist.
Act 12
I am no longer as eternally bored.
Act 13
This is what I see:
You, the narcissist
poet, the genius,
the enraptured heir.
I, the dead
girl of their dreams.
Great men quote you
in their speeches to the Queen.
Women become me
for Halloween:
“Get us to a nunnery.”
“Get us to a nunnery.”
Hamlet Receives Ophelia’s Video Selfie
Act 1
I didn’t watch
the video she sent.
Act 2
Out of protest I watched
the video she sent
without sound.
Her lips moved
greenly, like
a girl’s.
Act 3
I put pants on and went out.
Act 4
At the club, I checked my pants
with Rosencrantz.
He was working the door.
He said in the VIP
Polonius has some coke.
A thrust, a poke;
we barely spoke.
Act 5
I DM’d her a selfie
of the club, of me,
of the lights
spiraling behind
me.
I was spiraling, too
but she did not see:
to be or not to be,
she deleted my selfie.
Act 6
I did not tip
the cab driver.
Act 7
Out of protest I ceased eating;
I shrank and became gaunt.
Act 8
I ordered
a mushroom pizza.
Act 9
I watched the video
with sound.
It said, Hey, listen—
but I was editing my LinkedIn.
Act 10
I unmade
her mad with love:
I made rapid-fire, pouting selfies.
In her video she was saying,
Hey, listen—
but I was deleting my LinkedIn.
Act 11
Out of protest I proceeded
onto the promontory.
I said, Hey, Protestants,
watch this:
Act 12
Her video basically said, You
Her video basically said, Me
Her video basically should have said,
Down for Whatever?
Act 13
I said, Listen, maid
I am Hamlet, the Dane
and I leapt into her grave,
I climbed inside her grave—
she lay like a fish,
cold and plain—
I said, Listen
I am Hamlet the Dane—
her small, offensive
body, splayed—
In a nutshell I am
a king of infinite space,
a permanent arrangement
of words
and her, a deleted
face.
Megan Jones lives in Vancouver, BC. She is a writer of poetry and short fiction, as well as the Communications Coordinator for ZG Communications, a boutique marketing agency working with authors, publishers and not-for-profits.
