Sydney Vance
One Floating Thing
Past midnight, the neighborhood pool always wanted us
drunk, us girls of rose and rhododendron slipping
through narrow gate, cheap tequila and chlorine wilting
our petals. Motion-activated lights waited
like gargoyles above our heads, but our bodies were soft
upon the water. We said we’d bring boys someday—pictured them
faceless, ready for anything. Mostly, the pool was the place
we learned the art of not only floating, but staying that way,
staring into the night we weren’t afraid of losing. Junebugs
landing on our cheeks, one floating thing atop another. It was
boredom with its hooks in our bikini straps, boredom with
a million other teenaged girls to bother, and it was me stripping
in the parking lot, me streaking down the sidewalk along the pond
in naked bravery, me feeling like something greater than girlhood,
afraid of nothing. And sometimes that’s all living is: false memory
atop false memory, apotheosed
beneath a young moonlight’s first bloodletting.
Sydney Vance resides just outside of Oklahoma City and serves as a reader for the journal petrichor. She received her M.A. in creative writing from The University of Central Oklahoma in December 2022. Her poems have previously appeared in Puerto del Sol, Redivider, and Rogue Agent, among other outlets, and is forthcoming elsewhere.
Return to May 2023 Edition
Past midnight, the neighborhood pool always wanted us
drunk, us girls of rose and rhododendron slipping
through narrow gate, cheap tequila and chlorine wilting
our petals. Motion-activated lights waited
like gargoyles above our heads, but our bodies were soft
upon the water. We said we’d bring boys someday—pictured them
faceless, ready for anything. Mostly, the pool was the place
we learned the art of not only floating, but staying that way,
staring into the night we weren’t afraid of losing. Junebugs
landing on our cheeks, one floating thing atop another. It was
boredom with its hooks in our bikini straps, boredom with
a million other teenaged girls to bother, and it was me stripping
in the parking lot, me streaking down the sidewalk along the pond
in naked bravery, me feeling like something greater than girlhood,
afraid of nothing. And sometimes that’s all living is: false memory
atop false memory, apotheosed
beneath a young moonlight’s first bloodletting.
Sydney Vance resides just outside of Oklahoma City and serves as a reader for the journal petrichor. She received her M.A. in creative writing from The University of Central Oklahoma in December 2022. Her poems have previously appeared in Puerto del Sol, Redivider, and Rogue Agent, among other outlets, and is forthcoming elsewhere.
Return to May 2023 Edition