When whales get too old, they cannot come back up for air. They sink to the bottom of the ocean. The back window glows red from the brake light. I hold my foot down even though the car is in park. Wind carries the scent of the end of fall. Of fires and rust and snow. Like slick, sweaty hands on metal. When I left, the pumpkin on our porch had popped like a swollen zit. And it forced me to picture her wrinkles, her sagging breast. At her end she made me think of just how animal we are. Her mouth just for eating, her words turned to sounds. But I remember more than that. I remember her frail piano fingers, the fresh towels. The scent of soap and laundry detergent and steel. The kitchen, our games of Skip-Bo. Her white permed hair, the clanging dishes. The sound of the sink running, the suds of soap on my hands. The places I would set things aside to do them later. Her orange pot full of vegetable soup, The salt placed just for me. Her magnolia tree, Her screen door screeching as it shut. When humans touch, it's skin to bone to soul. Hands hold hands steady, legs push against the ground not to fall. It must be scary, drowning in a place you have always been able to breathe. No one knows what sits at the bottom of the sea. Only that it is Gone.
Whale Falls | Fiona Young
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