Limestone Beginnings
The day we met, you were dressed in dust, in faded black. Sunburnt, like charcoal. From inside the sound of rushing water I watched you and felt dizzy. You danced on the bank, your hair long and dark like tree branches, your eyes half closed. I hid in the trees.
When you saw me, the clouds came. Your smile wilted, turned brown, dropped into the water below. I watched, you wondered why. My stomach knotted. No words came from my mouth. You moved sideways to avoid touching my shadow and I knew you'd never love me.
The knots in my stomach tightened. I grabbed at the pain, ripped myself open. From me, from my insides, leaked mud and blood and leaves and air, and my connection to you, and to the sounds of the rushing Suwannee.
First Time
Fireworks at my uncle's house. Invitations are out to the entire neighborhood. The brunette across the street has been watching me for years. She watches me now. She dresses up in lemon yellow sandals and painted eyes, then dances her way across my uncle's front porch, the wood planks smoldering beneath her heels. In a single breath, she grabs my left hand and places it on her lemon yellow panties. "This is what sunshine feels like," she says.
Sandra Ketcham currently lives in Orlando where she works as a full-time freelance writer and editor. She has writing published or forthcoming in The Medulla Review, Gone Lawn, Bicycle Review, Red Booth Review, Psychic Meatloaf, Counterexample Poetics, and others.