Letters to a Far Planet--18
Everything passing through our world leaves a trace. I once visited a
prison, no longer in use. The men had decorated the walls of their tiny
cells with paintings. Touching the paintings, I felt a cord inside of me grow
taut. I thought it would break. I remembered Nicodemus, how he
believed a man had to go inside his mother's womb in order to be born again. But
we must become lost in a wilderness, holding a snake for a staff. This I
know: Life is either all or it is nothing. Paradise means having everything
we want. At the public swimming pool, my body under the blue water, I
touch my breasts. I am a fish and wonder about the taste of fish milk
(there is no such thing). I dream of grown men tasting from my body. Then I
laze in the sun so they will watch me. They don't know I think about
them or the ones downstairs, standing beneath the showers without their shorts.
They have so much hair. It is their power. A man named Cumanus once
shaved all the hair from the bodies of forty-seven women before burning them to
ash.
Theresa Williams's novel, The Secret of Hurricanes was a finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize. She has had short fiction and poetry published in Barnwood, Chattahoochee Review, Contemporary Haibun 12, Frogpond, Seems, Segue, Visions International, The Sun and other magazines.
Everything passing through our world leaves a trace. I once visited a
prison, no longer in use. The men had decorated the walls of their tiny
cells with paintings. Touching the paintings, I felt a cord inside of me grow
taut. I thought it would break. I remembered Nicodemus, how he
believed a man had to go inside his mother's womb in order to be born again. But
we must become lost in a wilderness, holding a snake for a staff. This I
know: Life is either all or it is nothing. Paradise means having everything
we want. At the public swimming pool, my body under the blue water, I
touch my breasts. I am a fish and wonder about the taste of fish milk
(there is no such thing). I dream of grown men tasting from my body. Then I
laze in the sun so they will watch me. They don't know I think about
them or the ones downstairs, standing beneath the showers without their shorts.
They have so much hair. It is their power. A man named Cumanus once
shaved all the hair from the bodies of forty-seven women before burning them to
ash.
Theresa Williams's novel, The Secret of Hurricanes was a finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize. She has had short fiction and poetry published in Barnwood, Chattahoochee Review, Contemporary Haibun 12, Frogpond, Seems, Segue, Visions International, The Sun and other magazines.
