"No one notices when a fresh stem of baby's breath falls into a pool. Instead, contention among the fangs simmers with rolling eyes, laughter, and barbecue. Everyone is testing each other. Backhanded comments clamor for attention. The egg timer is on, ticking until another fight breaks. As time ticks, the first escape, a splash, goes undetected. The girl descends to where light stops reflecting secrets tanning beneath the sun."
"She falls away from shadows pointing fingers. Tension subsides and the faces fade. She sinks deeper into the black pupil of a blue iris. Perhaps she will find a god hidden in an oyster at the bottom. With no air, there is a stillness, except when terror overcomes the mother who reaches for where her love began. This poem is from Thea Matthews' new book, Grime."
A social scene around a pool bristles with backhanded comments, rolling eyes, laughter, and barbecue as people test each other. Tension accumulates like an egg timer counting down toward conflict. Amid the noise, a girl slips unnoticed into the water and descends past reflected light into dark, secret depths. She moves away from accusatory shadows and sinks into a calm, black interior where she imagines finding a god hidden in an oyster. The submerged stillness contrasts with a mother's sudden panic, who reaches for the origin of her love as terror overcomes her.
Read at The Atlantic
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]