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Impossible Blue Eve F. W. Linn Light, the color of light, that’s what I remember. The light after a hot, cloudless day when my skin smelled of chlorine and Coppertone, fingers sticky with melted ice cream from a Good Humor pop. The smooth pale stick from Baltic birch, plunged into sweet vanilla melt studded with crunch, I swept my tongue around my teeth to get it all, all that I could scavenge, leave nothing for later. Later I would swallow his bitter gift almost choking, proud I could, without vomiting. That hot gush of someone’s future need. I washed the easy afternoon away, stopping to admire thin strips of white skin left by bathing suit straps, my shoulder sunburnt, stinging, just visible in the steam fogged mirror above the porcelain sink, scents of a body inching toward fullness, furred crotch, armpits, vanished by Summer’s Eve and Secret I wanted to stay in the tub, water cooling, one leg just over the rim, my foot touching terry cloth, my arm reaching for a towel, my baby doll pajamas ironed smooth, the slap of rubber flip-flops on the bare stairs. Dinner on the porch. Now in the future that is the present, I remembered I remember not shame, not exactly, but a question, kept folded away– Out that far beyond the deep end of the pool, where the lifeguard would blow his whistle if he thought you couldn’t swim. |
Photo by Etienne Girardet