My cousin and I lay on a futon.
I am seven. Our unshaven calves
are touching, soft as milkweed.
Her hands are cupped between her legs,
holding a trapped moth. I ask her why
her hands are there.

—

I am thirteen. In the bathtub,
I scoot my hips up against drain
and drop my head back like a baptism.
When the water gets too high, I empty
it again and again.

—

Shitty erotica on the computer.
My eyes skim the paragraph for the good
words: cock, thrust, moan, wet.

—

Hey, I didn’t know you’d be home so early.

—

I imagine his face between my legs.
There are people talking loudly
in the other room and I’ve got work
to do but his face is between
my legs and his fingers
are growing into my hips
and my fingers become his
tongue, oh god, and his tongue,
his tongue, his tongue is
a lonesome valley, his tongue
is the last prayer for rain.
I say my own name in a whisper.

—

Sumedha, a four-year-old
Indian girl with thick, oil-spill hair
is supposed to be asleep
on her cot at the daycare
where I work. It is nap time
and she is laying on her stomach,
her hands buried, her tiny pelvis
trying to find a rhythm
her body does not know yet.


- Sierra DeMulder