(It was that bungalow summer when

You took my hands

I swam to forget)

Inside the salted blood-fragrance of ocean

with grasps of sea current around me

I floated

looking up at white heels of cloud

scudding the sky and wondering how the sky

navigated the tide

and its malignant undertow

I sat in that lung-colored room for days,

waiting to get my hands back. Waves

eroded the sand at night, a desperate sound

like trains whistling through Idaho.

We sat in seaside diners

eating neon and not speaking.

Some days you locked me beneath the wet stair.

Webs hung down. I soaked my arms in the black liquid

that rose from the boards. I knelt there for days,

quiet as a fern.

One morning I work to fire springing from my wrists.

Mushroom-stumps of thumb budded, knobby

As garden bulbs. I kept them blind

Under my sleeves

( you knew I wanted

to leave

and that made me

afraid)

Next day I slid backwards under the door,

Fish-slippery in a tug of sudden blood

I sat blinking in the rushing daylight

And I knew: I did not need you

To give back my hands.

(The thumbs provided enough

of a start)

That night, rain stroked the house,

Leaves pressed wet ooze against the moaning panes

My strange fingers stuttered alive,

Not quite the same, but mine and ten.

On the dawn ferry, I watched water run

Like flames over the bungalow. Inside,

You slept. Salt and blood leaked from my knuckles.

I lifted my hands to the sun,

Trestled my fingers and counted each one.

Anne Spollen lives in New York City and teaches college English. She has published two novels, numerous essays and poems and has twice been nominated for Pushcarts. She is currently working on a collection of poetry and a novel. You can find more of her writing at https://medium.com/@annespollen