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.
