Kathleen Hellen

you said you dreamed you had a sister

—how did you know

it was a long time ago
before I dreamed you 

like an echo in the cells
dim gills nub-fingers

the way the dolphin locates krill
the she cells shed
in amniotic spill

a reflection—nerve, bone, clenched
cartilage scooting backward
dragged into the basin like a cradle
sometimes the basin’s a cradle

—how did you guess
a tiny fist
raw-red
in the trauma of
the jelly/in the tempest of
the stem/in the sinew of
the grey umbilical 

a memory
in saline’s solution

a long time ago
when the body’s not your own 

the drug they gave me to forget 

 

Kathleen Hellen is the author of The Only Country was the Color of My Skin (2018), the award-winning collection Umberto’s Night, and two chapbooks, The Girl Who Loved Mothra, and Pentimento.