Lorelei Bacht

Just the Beginning

after wrecking, still displayed on stiff sheets,

pinned white and hooked to manners of machines,

some dripping, some humming, somebody said:

and this, my dear, is just the beginning.

they meant: clotting, somnambulist, counting

every tick of the clock, eyelids, streetlights, stiff

hair, congealed spit, sweat and milk.

if I had known. but what was the other

collision course? sooner, later, at whichever

angle: I am returning to the ocean anyway, drip

drop. why not float it, however brief it may?

so we made you. at first a bright. at first a hope –

hope is lack of foresight. today marks

six years into this: we have made a person.

he has begun to build his own brick house,

his little marble run of repeating

whatever I said then, said when. and now:

we watch him walk the elaborate rope

he has wrung for himself.

he does not know it yet

*****

the procreant urge, how it bangs

pots and pans in my face: I must
melt yours into mine – only then,
will we discuss.

discuss how my hormones a chain
of pain linked incomplete and gone
cock-eyed – a severe twist, writes

the doctor. but we know doctors, how
they would peer through amniotic
curtain calls if you let them.

so I let them. perform perfunctory,
conclude what I already know:
this one is beautiful. oh, look:

I have woven a better me, one that
holds salt, one whose blood travels
up, one who can walk a mile in

the rain without death like a dog
at heel. one who carries silent.
the doctor calls my replacement

tablets fine for milking. so I milk
him white and warm and sat by
the window watching city lights,

I wonder: what age should I tell?

*****

on the rooftop, we called:

we've come to be muddled. if we

make a bird-boy or a gill-girl, we will

love them – not regardless,

but more. we drank the rain, the drain

grit, the streetlight: no other body can

do what mine does – you have

seen it bent over, bile vomit, calling

for help, walking that purple line, scent

of charcoal and ferns, not crushed, not

quite – look here, some how, some

thing small and clear-eyed happened and

called: I come not as a gift but as hard

work, which is one and the same. every

scale of my skin spells: you were right;

spells: all you need is a torchlight.

*****

Lorelei Bacht (she/they) is currently running out of ways to define herself, and would like to reside in a tranquil, quiet form of uncertainty for a while. Her recent work has appeared and/or are forthcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic, Visitant, The Wondrous Real, Abridged, Odd Magazine, Postscript, PROEM, SWWIM, Strukturriss, The Inflectionist Review, Hecate, and others. She is also on Instagram: @lorelei.bacht.writer and on Twitter: @bachtlorelei