Solid Things

Looking in a full length mirror
nude,
fluorescent lights
yellow, yellow wrap themselves around
every fleshy fist clenched fold.
A cry alongside one breath,
lungs full of air,
hot: breathing life.
But that’s when I lived at home,
when I’d drive to the beach and just sit
with my hands sweat sticked around the steering wheel
as the waves, heavy as summer’s concrete,
began to bleed in conversation
with my car’s dripping moan
and my body’s own salt drenched language.
I watch as the heavy, swollen sun
glazes the ocean’s, my ocean’s, lip
as night rises in one big blanket
dripping onto arms,
the color of eggshells, still warm.
Oh mother,
I fill my fist with these central meanings,
watching the clouded grey separation break
between blood and thought.
These solid things remind me of
a body that becomes more with this tomorrow against these walls,
when we wake up and do it all again,
soaking into one another, summer’s teenagers,
spending our lips on Kellogg’s frosted flakes,
and soggy milk drenched cheerios.
The smoke of summer’s humid hand,
carries the smell of cold, cold fire in our hair
as our eyes drip one after one after one,
counting backwards from ten into one silent prayer
printed on sweat slicked swingset scars on the back of the same legs
from which the beginning becomes an end.

—By Stella Egelja