Noontide

Hailey Berk

Take me down a chlorine memory

Where time lives in sweet crumbs

At the bottom of an Oreo Go-Pak

 

Trek across well-kept lawns,

Dodge verandas seeded with gossipers

Petting high-strung show dogs

 

Squeeze through the heavy back door,

Over slick locker room mats

Soaked in sweat and cheap shampoo

 

Emerge

Into the shimmering heat

Of a sun in retrograde:

 

Grandma’s pool

 

You take after Mom, always afraid

To face the cold

Dip a toe beneath the surface

 

Leeching sunscreen

As you wade, a pale oil spill

Trails in your wake

 

I’ll watch as you go under,

Hair billowing around your head

Like a jellyfish in slow locomotion

 

Let me stay here a while longer

 

As the clock hands hit terminal,

As you hoist yourself free, shivering

Off in search of fresh towels

 

Wrap me in chitin

Make me a new

Skin: glittering, cerulean

 

As your footprints fade

From the concrete,

I’ll alight—

 

A flash of blue glass

Against cloudless sky,

Then dip

 

Dragged by some sickness of the brain

Towards stagnant water

As if to assuage this terrible thirst