Holy Water
I.
Life rafts shaped like lounge chairs & pizza slices.
Our bodies, buoyed by the floaties holding us
in the shallow end. Our mother, frightened
by the way we sprinted across the pool deck, sopping wet
from sunstreaked mornings.Loath to leave the waters, she compromised for us.
Installed safeguards: locked the glass door
that thresholded the satellite dish of liquid,
required supervision for our playing, hired
a professional from the International Swimming Hall of Fame
to coach our survival instincts.II.
The woman, a broad-set backstroker in her 30s,
came every M/W/F, dressed like an orca in all black
one-pieces. She'd dive into the deep end with barely
a splash, then gesture softly towards our smallness,
finning us over from the shelter of the steps.With foam noodles tight in hand, she taught us
to become tadpoles, tugging us through the water
until we could prove our new gills & tails.III.
At the end of each lesson, we'd perform our tricks
for our mother: hold our breath underwater, paddle
from one edge to the other, until our labor became too much
& we'd flip onto our backs, picturing balloons
knotted to our belly buttons, pulling us cloudward
into the egg yolk oblivion above.Because she was our mother, our faithful observer, she'd watch us
quietly from the cement lip, until she sensed we'd lost
the rhythm of the currents. Only then would she beckon
us back to her, coaxing us further
with her calls to kick kick kick
Dear Mary,
An hour before I knock on the door
of the boy I will bestow my pseudo-virginity,
I'm shotgunning a lukewarm beer in the shower/bath combo
of a not-frat frat house on Semple Street.Burp so hard it all comes up— liquid-gold piss-taste,
Natty Lite & half-digested clumps.The girls I'm with, the leftovers from freshman year,
who know someone who knows someone
who knows someone who wanted to throw this party,
help scrounge the medicine cabinet for toothpaste
to finger-brush my acid mouth into something
less like a loaded gun.One runs into the kitchen, wedging her body
through a sea of bodies, to steal
a Red Solo cup from the counter.
Returns to me, ferociously holding up
the spoils of her crusade: a cup of jungle juice to rinse
& sterilize my post-vom tongue.I try not to think about the pile of emptied bottles or the boys
chugging their concoction in the other room, celebrating
like conquerors. Instead, I focus on the mission:
the stranger waiting for me in tower B—who'll be too lazy for missionary, so I'll climb him
like the bull at Tequila Cowboy, counting down
the eight seconds it'll take to finish this false first time—the stranger who won't tell me about the other girls'
accusations against him
for the entirety of our mock-relationship:
eighteen months, which is the length of two
complete pregnancies.
