SHERRE VERNON
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RAISE ME UP
1 Hot water and gravel detergent in the upstairs tub. The hamper tumbles the edge over and I roll the legs of the yellow jumper above my calves and stomp. We will dry the clothes hanging on towel racks and hooks, on shower rods and stair-rails. We will dry them with hairdryers and the heat of summer skin. 2 The antibiotics are always pink like sidewalk chalk and a rhyme about fruit-cock-tail that I don’t know is dirty until you tell me. They taste like licking ashtrays from cheap cigarette gum in waxy wrappers. I empty the whole bottle, one shot at a time, chase it with red fruit punch sugar. 3 Fresh bread is just sugar, flour & water— like a body: salt and yeast. We can get those things from the food pick up, the long line for the block of not-cheddar. It’s enough to keep us coming back. We eat bread hot and I learn to make it so I can share this with the girl I love in the lockerroom. She wears her hair up, shows her neck.
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Volume 17 • 2022
