By Shira Haus

 

Another rainy April. Cameras flash at intersections like lightning, capture

muck streaking down my windshield. I only look at myself in the mirror

to analyze the gray light on my cheeks. My soles wear thin. My feet get wet,

my chest gets hot. Her gaze catches me in the midst of yet another fantasy,

one of those soaked in brandy and river-water, shivering and only one bed.

Eyes like liquid tin. I drive her home. I speak when spoken to. I shiver

all the way back, rain pounding metal, tire tracks shimmering and filthy,

headlights burning holes through the dark. My old lovers used to think

I could bend light with just my hands. They looked at me like a white dove

sailing through clear skies. I had nothing to offer them but more dirty water,

bread shot through with blue bolts of mold. God, I confess I’ve never washed

my car. Forever dreaming of a world in which a long night of rain is enough

to wipe everything clean. But you and I know better. After a flood,

the ground doesn’t shine. It bleeds. It weeps torrents of mud and oil,

vole corpses and empty bottles, grass like snarls of black hair.

God, I know better than to carve a boat from a woman’s bones,

to believe in a harbor built from someone else’s bed. The myth dies

upon contact. I would stain her sheets. I would leave rings on the wood.

God, I swear, I’ll find my own damn shelter this time. Otter-sleek,

I’ll dive through the waters of her life and leave no trace of me behind.

~~~

Shira Leah Haus (she/her) is a queer, Jewish writer from Michigan. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in POETRY, Passages North, Identity Theory, and Variant Literature, among others. She has received support from the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference and placed third in the 2024 Pinch Literary Awards for poetry. You can find her on Instagram at @shirahaus and on Twitter at @shira_leah.