Starter Home

// Kathleen Kimball-Baker

A splash, a slap on shallow water.
The echoes say a tree will tumble.

He clicks long teeth into the bark,
shaves thin and tart curls of debris

that float like a halo. He chisels
into the flesh a corset, its demise.

She watches it lean, hears it crack in two
Inhales exploding rings of memory.

She wonders: Can splintered halves
ever be reassembled, made whole, knit like broken bones

Water pools where it hasn’t before, hides
a secret reached only with breath held.

He takes her under the water whose
course and hers he has changed.