Baptism at Twenty-Three
My skin was mirror and glass and wanted
to break. The waitresses lined the back porch
after work, smoking and letting our sweat evaporate
into the midnight air. We drank Red Stripe and PBR
and G&Ts in tall, sweaty glasses. I smoked
as if I were a person who actually smoked.
When my skin burnt and wanted to split
my friends said to slather aloe
on my shoulders but the heat
had already become a hand pressing
my throat. That summer, I kept falling
for firestorm and it was summer
every day that year. Once, a man brought me
to the lake to have sex, the moon
so bright every cottage could have seen. The sand
rubbed my shoulders raw but I didn’t notice
until the next morning. I went into the lake
to wash off that char and it felt like Assumption,
it felt like coming home. I set a timeframe for falling
the way you set a timer on the stove.
When the year was up, I set the timer again.
*
Laura Donnelly is the author of two collections of poetry, Midwest Gothic (Ashland Poetry Press) and Watershed (Cider Press Review) and her recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Iron Horse Literary Review, SWWIM, EcoTheo Review, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. Originally from Michigan, she lives in Upstate New York where she teaches and directs the creative writing program at SUNY Oswego.
