SubscribeCousins
Cousins
We spent all afternoon
running through the muddy rows
of filberts, gathering
the windfall nuts
in a ten-gallon
bucket, cracking their shells
with a hammer
on the grass-split cement
by the basketball hoop,
washing brown casings
from the court with a hose.
In the evening
I’d already had a bath, but the skin
on my soles was creased
from summer running, the callus
of being seven. So Heather
brought a bottle of nail
polish to her room, put me
on the edge of the bed.
She gave me lotion
to rub on each foot, all
my small toes, and uncapped
the red paint.
In her purple
pajamas she was the most gorgeous
girl I had ever seen, her hair
streaked like the light
you can see when you sprint
past an even line
of nut trees in afternoon,
the sun cracked
into a hundred corridors of orange.
About the Author
Maya Jewell Zeller's first book, Rust Fish, is due out in April from Lost Horse Press. Individual poems have been published recently in Rattle, Camas, and Pank, and are forthcoming from The Spoon River Poetry Review and Mississippi Review. Maya lives in Spokane with her husband and daughter and teaches English at Gonzaga University.
“…the callus/of being seven.” Oh how this resonates in the little girl corners of my mind. Beautifully drawn in rhythm and clarity of image, this poem delivers me into the tough and tender slivers of memory.