Robin Gow

all the rain came down at once like a dropped bag of aquarium pebbles. too much for the street to swallow: all gravel & grit. i feel the saltwater rushing in my mouth as i hit the shore — sand becoming rice. the pot on the stove — put on the lid. we read the back of the bag — bring the water to a boil — it protests in the clouds. rainwater peeling open car windows to fill the floor — make mobile your lakes & the herons will come — don’t feed the birds rice. my favorite summer storms are the ones that come too fast. they remind me so much of myself: gathering their gray hair in a bouquet to beat against the highway. i think of the times the thunder would toss geodes at the street until they cracked open, about dad telling my brother & i to go upstairs & shut the windows before the storm snuck inside. the car prayed until it drove on water — ocean barreling toward us like a great big whale: blueness open & mouth full of salt. you ask if we should stir the rice & the water hisses & spits. we often forget about the ghosts who kneel in pots of water. there’s always a wooden spoon. i keep mine in the glove box. taking it out, i park the car with the four-ways on. other monsters slosh past. we get out on the side of the road. kneeling i plunge the spoon into the bank: chicken broth & rice. rain warming our bodies until there’s no mistaking us from the stove. i burn my feet getting back into the car. our flesh turns chicken-white & tender. somewhere in all of this i managed to drive across the whole unknown ocean — the one without a name that shows up only when it downpours. makes tides that eat radar & sailors. picks rice grains from her teeth. the other side is not land, but soft rice steaming & ready. our legs sink in. take a spoonful of me before i drive home a second time. the sun emerging like a quartered bell pepper. i’m thinking of lying in a rain puddle with you & falling apart into a palm full of cooked rice.

it started with the first time i opened the closet in my new bedroom. paper flecks bursting from behind the door. they had been waiting all millennia. you helped me pick them from my hair but even weeks later we’d still find pieces in between teeth — under tongues — on shoulders & lodged beneath fingernails. you were always so gentle as you’d release them out the window — same as you’d do for a spider. when finished with a rainbow it is the task of the youngest angel to put it through the paper shredder. he crouches in the cloud mist — taking handfuls of the body’s remnants. he learns not to weep after years of practice. the first rainbow he shredded was that one that we tried to follow in your car — driving around wet fallen trees — mist rising from the asphalt. we never did get there but we did stop for ice cream. you bit the bottom off the cone. the sound of the rainbow’s destruction was only a dull static noise to us down here. i noticed it but didn’t want to tell you. the next time i was tearing open what looked like a credit card offer in the mail & out came the confetti. we had just stopped finding it on everything — gushing like an artery i covered my face until it was through. mounds upon mounds of color. stole the rake from my aunt’s shed we had used to rake leaves in early october before the weather gave herself over to frost. i resisted the impulse to make the confetti into piles to leap into. you were coming over & i wanted to be clean. the next time we slept together i transported myself somewhere else as you kissed me. sat on the collarbone of the rainbow as it was shred along with my hair. me, with the thousand-piece body. me, getting blown away by the first breeze. me, inhaling the tears of the kneeling angel. i came back to the room when you knelt, spitting paper out of your mouth. confetti began to pour out from behind my lips, miraculously dry. each time i tried to apologize more came out; you, naked on the bedroom floor trying to dispose of the colors as they came. flow mountain spring. flow slit neck of a pig. flash flood & flow melted ice cream down to our elbows. by the time it stopped your fear turned to anger. slammed the door as you left & there i was with all this color. i put some in my mouth but it was too bitter too swallow. if i don’t kiss anyone this won’t happen again — i can keep it a beautiful secret. routine: each morning removing the piles of cut paper. when you come over i sometimes find them on your skin. you don’t notice so i kiss them off your neck. i’m trying i’m trying. i peel the rainbows free & roll them up like yoga mats in the closet. the shredding has gotten so loud — i ask you if you hear it & you shake your head, unknowingly. i can’t stand it — i can’t stand it. caress this color out of me.