Kinship
by gm
Jaime Forsythe
A bathtub filled with melted snow, a baby’s legs churning
studiously. Dusk highlights our dust, crumbs lodged in seams, fairy
door shimmering a little. The baby’s hands smell of watermelon, nutmeg,
raw sliced squash. Once I did things like a ride a girl’s crossbar at midnight.
I crouched in a clawfoot with a budding anthropologist, mapped the faucet face,
prelude to a walk of shame past a cemetery. But yesterday, first bike ride
in a year, my body mine, safety supplies lacking: lightless, helmet loose.
Animal prints and military bedtimes, pastel shaker eggs versus the warm, silent
chicken kind. Race around the swing set of a neglected public school, eucalyptus
rubbed into our chests, water passed back and forth, cold mouths. Churning
in my own underworld, words rotting in my gut, a foghorn cuts the drone
of the shower head. A sweet shadow drapes itself across the stairwell
while all the humans stay sleeping, head to toe.
