FLUID

The newborn that rejects its mother’s milk,

the venom pooling around the snake’s crushed head,

the barber’s wet blade across the lathered skullcap,

the plumbing miracle that’s a drop 

in Drought’s deep bucket,

the father’s I love you spoken for the first time

over speaker phone during a chemo IV drip,

the body and the acid it can ooze,

the thirst of orphans quenched in a dream,

how swallowing becomes a pain like no other…

saying all this and more,

over a box of Trader Joe’s Thai noodles,

microwaved, no water required,

is one way to anoint the self,

to ordain one’s own life,

through the telling,

through the tears.