Childhood

was never simple, though in my ignorance
I believed it to be. Raccoons came to the back door

and my mother poured them bowls
of cat food. What could be less complicated

than offering a meal with upturned hands? Their round mammal bodies
clambered over the fence. I saw them and thought rodent

but raccoons are closer to bears, and I cannot tell you closeness
is not my concern. Some days

I insisted on being naked, sensual, still learning
the limits of my body. I dreamed an alligator

chased me up the stairs, teeth shining,
then asked me to be friends. I kept taking off my clothes

without knowing the reason, kept writing my first name
in cursive on the walls. I learned to fear

the ocean. I hardly brushed my hair.
Memory is a rental house

that’s uninhabited, unless you count
the litter of raccoons nursing in the attic.

It’s there at the end of a dirt road
inside city limits, where half the handles fell from the doors

of the minivan. My mother called it the courtesy van
because it forced you to open up for each other.

No, I no longer blame myself
for what I did not know back then, when everything I tasted

burned my tongue. I was afraid to climb onto the roof from the porch,
even when the sky was lit with fireworks

in all directions. The first time I saw the moon
slide in front of the sun, I cried.

 

 

About the Author
Zeke Shomler is an MA/MFA candidate at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he serves as Managing Editor of Permafrost Literary Magazine. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Folio, AGNI, Bicoastal Review, The Shore, and elsewhere.