Monica Rico
Never let go my skin.
Lake Michigan is
the bed I make, a
sandwich, and sea
bird daringly close.
I have covered my
body for too long, even
my scars are
a memory
to time and light.
An almost ocean
truncates the sharp
point of my ankle.
How much piss
fills this shore?
The first time I saw
bottled water I
thought of the olive
jar my mother kept
in her dresser.
I was in L.A
which felt far
enough to be sacred.
Chlorine could make
a body glow after
days spent in the
public pool. Lake
Michigan was for
someone else, even
the waves clap white.
Will I smell like earth,
sand, and stone. The
glimmer of one fish.
After the first four
months of water, it's
the movement of land
spinning on an axis I attach
my feet to. Lake Michigan
is an arrhythmia.
One, one thousand. Two.