Kaleigh Spollen
Dishwasher
I am at my most porous
drinking water from the bathroom faucet
at two in the morning -
my molars fuzzy and everything
softly dark but for two small
lights somewhere: a beetle-winged pulse, the breath
of a machine, all digital and perfect.
The violet of post-midnight is an ache
I feel in my heels. I ask the machine of my brain
if these are the same tarsal cells
that struck wood chips
years ago: the ragged jump, the swing, hot metal.
Yesterday is a luminous thing.
Tomorrow I will
measure my moles. I will
call my mother and open the PECO bill.
Nobody asks, but I tell everyone I meet
that I love to do the dishes.
There is a still beauty to seeing water
flood a sink,
murmur over streaked glass.
My mother has a voicemail box that
has not been set up yet.
Goodbye, it says,
full of the same liquid clarity
as a radiant puddle holding
blue, the bright underbellies of clouds.
Kaleigh Spollen is a writer currently based in Philadelphia, PA.
Return to November 2022 Edition
I am at my most porous
drinking water from the bathroom faucet
at two in the morning -
my molars fuzzy and everything
softly dark but for two small
lights somewhere: a beetle-winged pulse, the breath
of a machine, all digital and perfect.
The violet of post-midnight is an ache
I feel in my heels. I ask the machine of my brain
if these are the same tarsal cells
that struck wood chips
years ago: the ragged jump, the swing, hot metal.
Yesterday is a luminous thing.
Tomorrow I will
measure my moles. I will
call my mother and open the PECO bill.
Nobody asks, but I tell everyone I meet
that I love to do the dishes.
There is a still beauty to seeing water
flood a sink,
murmur over streaked glass.
My mother has a voicemail box that
has not been set up yet.
Goodbye, it says,
full of the same liquid clarity
as a radiant puddle holding
blue, the bright underbellies of clouds.
Kaleigh Spollen is a writer currently based in Philadelphia, PA.
Return to November 2022 Edition