CHARMAINE ARJOONLAL

Wild Abandon

My cloud-hands part the water bugs and I sink
into the frigid depths of a floating patchwork quilt  
its blues and emerald greens fray into
lime greens like squished kiwi—
its seeds, knowing eyes.

Arms slice the forest shimmer 
my reflection ripples in half-light, 
we merge, my submerged gasp
swallowed like shame—my birth mother 
steadfast in her shamefastness
my body, her outcast temple.

Her shame, replicated, an X intertwined in skin, 
muscle, sinew, bones a beacon—the flash-
yellow brilliance of lost sunshine—
inherited silence, safer than speaking
to the air, of freedom.

Ducks quack human voices: a school bus filled
with teens, white boy spits
on brown girl, globs of goo
slides off her skin, my skin to pool …
hate swirls metal rivets like bullets.

Heart pounding, the frolic in needle-slow water, frenzied 
half-swim back to froth-rimmed shore, sharp stones,
reddish brown bare feet sink in half-snow-muck,
stinging, stamping, hopping.

But something happens in a Yukon Lake in October,
skin tingling like euphoria, like release, pings of joy— 
goose bumps slide, slough genetic sin. 
I lose something,

I become whole.