No-swimming sign.
Manmade tide crushes bodies
Into brackish marmalade.
In the teeth, forgetting.
In the teeth, cartilage and fibrous memory.
While brushing, I let the tap run
Until a form flows over,
Sheds water like light.
And heeding my elders warning,
I mop her up.
I am water soluble too,
Sherbert on Auntie’s punch.
Particles warming, diffusing in vastness
Primordial soup of past hopes
No current to guide them.
I perform the water cycle for local first-graders
But lack the proper gestures:
Evaporation-Condensation-Precipitation-
Distillation into plastic bottles
Sold in 24-packs to be left in the sun
Half-drunk.
B Mallek is a Master’s student in English.
Charles William Brubaker, University of Illinois Chicago, http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm/ref/collection/uic_bru/id/1559