July 12, 2024 - “Heart under water” by Ellis Dickson
I keep forgetting we’re out of towels
When I use the bathroom soap
I bend over a little, just a bit
And my hands close over the void
The water has drowned the kitchen
It came in through the cellar and through my soles
Kissed my feet and tasted my ankles
Susurrated forbidden words to my knees
I took a shower to rinse my skin
my mouth
From all this sand
I made a wall of it behind the beam laid on the road
But the weight of the barrel was too heavy for my arms
I had to carry the first kilos with my hands
By a cardboard box in the wheelbarrow
Soon I was engulfed by dirty water
Under the wet, sticky sand
that seeps in everywhere
I was holding the flashlight with my teeth then
The grains crept into my mouth
I went inside, holding the pump down against the stone
Sitting in the water but protected by the roof and then
The current jumped
The motor fell silent and the whole neighborhood went silent too
I was alone in the impenetrable night
Lying on a puddle
I wished he’d come and get me
To dry me in the light
I waited I listened I called him but he didn’t answer so
I slipped between the stone and the wood
And closed the door behind me
I showered like this
I only had one tea towel left to wring myself out but
I still had a clean tea towel
One day all this water that now overwhelms us
That threatens to rot my floor
We’ll miss it
When there’s not a drop left
In the brooks
To the swamp
To the river I know
One day we’ll miss that water
For now his absence biting my belly
He left one evening carried away by the storm
It was how many a week two three
Since then I’ve been watching in the dark for his return
I fill in the gaps and since the sun doesn’t seem to be coming back
I become a hybrid creature
If the water rises and transforms my house
I’ll be a frog an eel a fish
If I no longer have his arms
If I no longer have a roof over my head
For the days when there won’t be a drop left
I’ll make myself liquid
Ellis Dickson is working on identity and home through poetry, short stories and novels. She is interested in light and colour in the representation of the familiar. A few texts are published from time to time in general literature, poetry and science-fiction.
