Wound by Michelle Askin
Then I remembered it as though it were deep in the rain of heaven--
you were brushing my hair when the rubber band fell.
Your Portuguese palms and cat-black hair brushing my strands
from the chin. And outside, the world was gray and dreamy.
My dead Grandfather's Japanese lover in a hospital room
off Georgetown Pike with her, Love young or it will be too late for you.
What she missed was a Mormon boy on mission taking her out back
the sushi house and chopping the fish in half:
I got the fish eyes. He knew I loved the fish eyes.
I was his first woman though he had another boy
in an Atlantic City bathhouse. What strange memories will do.
You, who had a husband and a strep-throat child to run home to
after we mopped the hospital floor, said, You just thought it was her
because you missed your grandfather and you always feel guilt
for the lonely because you are the guilty lonely.
The bleach chemicals with your olive oil soap were blurred
so I smelled pool water and tasted summer in my breath.
I loved you so sadly. You were like the radio.
And your hands on me, my favorite thing.
Michelle Askin lives and teaches in Virginia. Her poetry has appeared in Oranges & Sardines, 2River View, Fogged Clarity, The Kitchen Poet, Exact Change Only, and elsewhere.
Then I remembered it as though it were deep in the rain of heaven--
you were brushing my hair when the rubber band fell.
Your Portuguese palms and cat-black hair brushing my strands
from the chin. And outside, the world was gray and dreamy.
My dead Grandfather's Japanese lover in a hospital room
off Georgetown Pike with her, Love young or it will be too late for you.
What she missed was a Mormon boy on mission taking her out back
the sushi house and chopping the fish in half:
I got the fish eyes. He knew I loved the fish eyes.
I was his first woman though he had another boy
in an Atlantic City bathhouse. What strange memories will do.
You, who had a husband and a strep-throat child to run home to
after we mopped the hospital floor, said, You just thought it was her
because you missed your grandfather and you always feel guilt
for the lonely because you are the guilty lonely.
The bleach chemicals with your olive oil soap were blurred
so I smelled pool water and tasted summer in my breath.
I loved you so sadly. You were like the radio.
And your hands on me, my favorite thing.
Michelle Askin lives and teaches in Virginia. Her poetry has appeared in Oranges & Sardines, 2River View, Fogged Clarity, The Kitchen Poet, Exact Change Only, and elsewhere.
