A warped face on the bottom of the glass: A poem

A warped face on the bottom of the glass

but the child only saw a pig.

     A pig, and nothing more.

She studied the thin, black holes of eyes,

     nose large and prominent,

     tip of the upper lip barely visible over the thick white liquid.

It was watching her.

She drank quicker so it could be free,

but tipping the glass farther

and the pig disappeared,

replaced by a series of 

     indiscriminately 

     black 

     smudges. 

such transience means nothing to children

whose brother is calling

“Come on Weagan! Put on your zucchini!

    Weagan come on!”

She rushed out to greet

     the heat

     and the inflatable plastics

     and the 80-acre barrier from the 

     bogus simulation, 

     always on high-exposure, 

     dimmed by its clarity.

But it was easier to ignore back then

the only worry of parental calling-it-quits,

because tiny fingers were crinkled like a crushed brown paper bag

Children want to stay under the water,

     become a full-body crinkle

     until self was no more than a ball to throw at Sibling

     two crinkly orbs floating

     two atoms bumping into each other amongst all the other atoms.

But they exited the water on command.

And then the prolonged wait until

the clicking of heels on the tile

announced her arrival,

     tired, 

     setting down her bags

only after the child barrels into her legs,

     inhaling the scent of

    cosmetics and

    linen and

    safety and

    relief

She came back to us and he returned from the fields and we ate dinner

and I tipped and

the pig inside of me appeared in my reflection,

a transient and hazy but ever-present ghost of my childhood.