Radio Signals
Emma Hardison

 
There are tufts of grass scattered across the landscape of my back; after it rains, a river of peppermint oil coagulates in the line of my spine.
My baby teeth have regrown. There is no room for them, the roof of my mouth has become a cemetery, they stick out like headstones. I imagine there are words engraved in them, Rest in Peace Dorothy Gonzales, Beloved Mother, 1945-2009. Her children, who are quite old now, only visit the day after Christmas and leave an odd array of candies. I hope that she gets them, wherever she is.
The shutters cringe every time the wind touches them, it is cold, the seagulls are loud, and they don’t get health care coverage. This was their job, not their career. Unlike the astronauts, who had burns and chunks of meteorites embedded in their small wrinkled baby feet; visited Venus in the womb while nuclear fusion propelled them out of the embryo phase.
Linnéa, the middle of me, my belly button and flower stems of DNA. Blonde hair soaked in milk holds my organs in place like balloons on a child’s wrist. My grandmother tells me there is a place and time to show off one’s dance moves.
 
 
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