Remi Recchia, Michigan, USA
Imagine four legs of petrified wood rotting
underwater: the smell, the blurring, the texture.
You’d have to scrub your hands under hot water
to shed the slimy residue. The grime might remind
you of the camping trip with your dad, old
tent with a torn zipper, how all the flies collected
in your sleep. They’d nestled into your hair
and laid eggs before dawn. The next morning,
you’d woken, startled, as if by gunshot. Weak fire
breathed canned beans into soggy life. Your dad
fake cooking, smiling. Fake laughing, seeking
cell phone reception in the woods.
You’d waited in the car all day and asked for your
mother. She hadn’t come. You’d waited longer.
She still hadn’t come. At night you went down
by the water. You wondered what it’d be like to be a fish.
Remi Recchia is a trans poet from Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Creative Writing at Oklahoma State University. His work has appeared in Sleet Magazine, Barzakh Magazine, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Front Porch, Gravel, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, and Haverthorn Press, among others. He holds an MFA in Poetry from Bowling Green State University.