By: Amanda Leal
On the back deck, my son balances on the armrest of the wicker couch, a devil gilded
in a corona of sunset, a broken egg yolk
in his curls that hold the light as a halo, his knees locked, toes curled around the arm.
He is a muscle movement
away from the concrete, his eyes open saucers that hold energy like a marble spinning
on the edges, his limbs tense
as the fist that crushes my windpipe like a bushel of flowers. I remember being on top of the Empire State Building, how my body shrank from the edge,
as though I believed I could be overtaken by a force propelling me over the thirty foot enclosure,
the air between myself and the street, heavy and still as the mass of the ocean. Now, my son sways, his hips swivel,
and I see it, the unreal flash of blood on the base of his skull, as though you cannot imagine
that your child is made of skin and blood, that the skin could relent easily as an eggshell. I see it all,
right before he tilts in my direction, falling onto me, into me, the way one towers over a surface of water,
only to envelope their own reflection.
Amanda Leal is a 27 year-old poet from Lake Worth, FL. Her work focuses upon themes of motherhood, love and loss. She spends her spare time corralling her toddler and her pit bull.