Summer Tsunami & The Sun Had Not Yet Risen When
Poetry by Rachelle Lawka
Para Pily by Aura Hurtado (2022)
Summer Tsunami
Perspiration collects like a river
on nodules of my spine.
One. Two. Three.
Four.
I count the beads like sheep at night, like
seconds opening up
between one vein of lightning—one Mississippi,
two Mississippi,
three Mississippi,
four—
the clap of thunder struck
against the glass of my window. I measure
time like this. Between hours that pass undisturbed,
those that seep by with the soothing stream of sweat
pooling down my neck, rolling
off my shoulders,
dripping
so painstakingly slow down my back
that if I were to twist my head, I would find
my damp skin bunching
there on saturated carpet, right next to
a bubbling bath filled with bodily fluid
and mulberry oil and sandalwood soap and—
one Mississippi,
two Mississippi,
three—
I drink rainwater mixed with SPF 50 sunscreen
that tastes like coconut and strawberry, like
swimming lessons I took as a child. I lick
the trail of lady bugs climbing
up the knobs of my spine, tasting
the lingering tang
of freshly mowed lawns and
newly chlorinated pools.
A drop flows down the empty space connecting
both my breasts, situating itself
in the crevice of my bloated belly. I try to recall
whether I am supposed to start counting the seconds between
the first crack of thunder
and the next blaze of lightning, whether
it is the other way around.
One sheep, two sheep,
three—
Mississippi, four Mississippi,
five—
seconds since the last bang of thunder,
six since the last burst of lightning.
I lose count at twenty, then thirteen, am forced
to start again, but no matter how hard I try
the sheep keep spawning,
the storm keeps stirring,
and
the sweat on my spine keeps
bleeding
down
down
down
D
O
W
N
onto the carpeted ground
The Sun Had Not Yet Risen When
I woke to find her slender body
amidst a roiling sea
of dew-dappled grass
and trampled tulips,
with a bough of buttercups
draped across
her cranium
like an iridescent crown.
she could have been perceived
as a queen, bedecked in bold fleece,
a cradle of gilded glory
ensnared in vagrant threads of sun, slipped
beneath her breast,
woven in strands steadfast.
She could have been you or me or
the boy down the street.
She could have been
a daughter, a sister.
A merciful mother.
Stomach swollen,
breasts dense, a litter of life
bruised and bonded
in the wall of her womb.
She could have been
but ultimately was not.
Her proliferated middle,
her engorged, embittered gut
deluged of crude contents
on gentle verdant grass,
permeating gardens,
the premature spring
with the bodily stench of slaughter, still sour
in the stagnant stirring of sun.
I could not reach a hand
to mark the spot
where she now forever lay
perpetually,
relentlessly
flaccid.
I could not knead my knuckles against
the soft of her supple flesh,
to thrust tissue, now staining soil,
back into her seeping carcass.
Opossum—Oh, friend of mine,
lover of this wild wasteland,
sister of this hollow abode,
I will sustain your fragile frame,
build you a burrow made from bones,
crafted from cloths, fashioned from leaves,
I will build you a grave made for a queen.
Rachelle Lawka is an emerging Canadian poet, writer, and aspiring painter, who has a deep, unyielding love and respect for nature, which we are all ultimately conceived from. Much of her writing and art is formed around the understanding that both human and nature are inherently connected, and thus should be embraced equally and wholeheartedly. When she is not writing or painting, you can instead find her tending to her plants, reading her cat poetry, or exploring a new hiking trail.