m e d u s a

so this is what I've been writing lately:




This morning, I wake up in my bedroom at the top of dad’s house.

My bed is cavernous and my sheets are supple dark silk. The windows stand around me like empty eyes. The wash of the beach is far away.

Downstairs, Sally bangs around in the kitchen. The distant griddle hisses, musical grease. The twang of steel guitars on the radio, unfocused. Pelma is pumping water in the yard. The dog boys sing Johnny Cash out in the hills. The cicadas are droning in the trees. They’re saying: summer, summer, summer.
I climb out the window onto the red stucco roof and burn my heels on the hot tiles. The endless summer of the island slaps my cheeks. The breeze off the sea tastes like day old fish.

Some mornings I think about the white surf kissing the dark and bitter rocks below. Some mornings I contemplate dad’s hunting rifles, locked behind the frosted glass of the gun cabinet. This morning, I crouch over myself and put my face in her hands, make an X with my arms and legs.

And I wait.
 

 
 
 
 
© christina k. circa october 2009