Late fall. A dearth of stars hover in wide gaps over someone else’s plastic wading pool. Water not even deep enough to cover anything proper. You haven’t yet understood the naturist impulses of your parents, their need to trespass. So you make a water-angel while your mother and father examine a bed of violets. Your father, always brave enough to pick a few, offers to dress your mother in flowers. He begins with the crevices of her body: a petal behind each of her ears, one on the inside of her elbows, and two more between her breasts. He measures his work for a moment, finds it wanting. But then he threads a few stems through the hairs of your mother’s pubis, crossing the blooms wherever he can. His work now complete.
“And you are going to get us in trouble,” your mother answers. Already, her outfit is wilting and falling from her. She can’t even wear this, you think.
No matter. You have brownbagged stars for a mild distraction, all of their light stuffing into morning. Constellations seem more like a convention of every connect-the-dots puzzle you never finished. Both dippers are without their handles. And Orion seems to share your family’s exposure with the absence of his belt. Don’t let the small laughter bubbles escape to the surface at this realization. And don’t forget to forgive yourself years later when you break your parents only rule of absolute silence by screaming for help after some water you swallow finds the wrong pipe. It is only a mouthful or two.
An itemized list of things you should not have to remember:
1) Sudden eye pollution of porchlight.
2) The ear sting of a siren in the front yard.
3) A game of tug-of-war between your mother and the uniformed officer with you as the rope.
4) Petals from your mother’s flower garden ears snowing on your face.
5) The cinched Salvation Army tie at your throat as you ride to your first foster home—Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
Exclude yourself from these things tonight. Drive to a town you haven’t been through at three am. Find a public pool. Strip. Seek only the ripples of water and flesh. Breaststroke and devil-may-care backstroke. Let your genitals be free to observe the cacophony of a life free of zippered exclusion. Wish for the last of this summer humidity to brave others into your discovery. After all, swimming is a lesser, more lyric form of flight. In small measures, crack your mouth into a smile and swallow. Only enough to keep your mouth from drying this time. Try to remember the percentage of human tissue comprised of water, though it will not seem adequate one you do. If you can, flex your muscles until they split into tiny waves and swim away into molecules more hydrogen than air.
“And you are going to get us in trouble,” your mother answers. Already, her outfit is wilting and falling from her. She can’t even wear this, you think.
No matter. You have brownbagged stars for a mild distraction, all of their light stuffing into morning. Constellations seem more like a convention of every connect-the-dots puzzle you never finished. Both dippers are without their handles. And Orion seems to share your family’s exposure with the absence of his belt. Don’t let the small laughter bubbles escape to the surface at this realization. And don’t forget to forgive yourself years later when you break your parents only rule of absolute silence by screaming for help after some water you swallow finds the wrong pipe. It is only a mouthful or two.
An itemized list of things you should not have to remember:
1) Sudden eye pollution of porchlight.
2) The ear sting of a siren in the front yard.
3) A game of tug-of-war between your mother and the uniformed officer with you as the rope.
4) Petals from your mother’s flower garden ears snowing on your face.
5) The cinched Salvation Army tie at your throat as you ride to your first foster home—Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
Exclude yourself from these things tonight. Drive to a town you haven’t been through at three am. Find a public pool. Strip. Seek only the ripples of water and flesh. Breaststroke and devil-may-care backstroke. Let your genitals be free to observe the cacophony of a life free of zippered exclusion. Wish for the last of this summer humidity to brave others into your discovery. After all, swimming is a lesser, more lyric form of flight. In small measures, crack your mouth into a smile and swallow. Only enough to keep your mouth from drying this time. Try to remember the percentage of human tissue comprised of water, though it will not seem adequate one you do. If you can, flex your muscles until they split into tiny waves and swim away into molecules more hydrogen than air.
