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This content was created by and is owned by Raechel deMink.

Renaissance©

The ship heaved into port, battered and bruised

by the suckling of barnacles. No moon

shone that night. No planets. No stars. No comets.

Darkness extends friendship to those in need.

*

We did not go to the docks to greet her.

One innocent interference could wreck

her ship, and her ship had to be wrecked by

her own accord. That was her holiday:

*

the wrecking of her beloved frigate,

*

as observed by all battle-scarred women.

We observed from a supportive distance

when dawn split across the sea, as the rite

requests. And we enjoyed brunch, as she wished.

*

We watched her wait with Sugar Bear. What for,

we didn’t know. The reasons are different

for every survivor. So we waited

with our rosemary roasted potatoes.

*

A woman with an emerald mohawk

told of her teeth grating against her scone

while she watched shit get real: the liberty,

the fire, the burning of her last fuck.

*

Parfaits in hand, we watched her unravel.

It’s always a slow and painful process:

they start out tense as a taped-up carpet,

and when they’re slit, they don’t know what to do.

*

They just hover for a while, offgassing.

*

A little girl in a blue gingham dress

told of her knowing. She knew well the dread

of disentanglement, of a string’s end

with no knot, bead, or clasp to stop your fall;

*

the understanding that you can’t stop now.

*

We sipped iced coffees under palm trees, cool

and collected while we waited for her

to recover, to regain her courage,

to finish nursing her dear Sugar Bear.

*

We knew she was ready when speckled clouds

of eight-legged widows danced in the sky,

their silken parachutes mirroring blasts

in shallow pockets the shark once haunted.

*

A woman in a white button-up dress

said the willows wept a little louder

at the spiders’ queue. They grieved for dry spells,

lost gems, doubled-over women like her. 

*

Her mother ate an egg and a sausage

and told of her first word, first song, first fight.

Her mother said she had to grip the grass

to keep from ripping the damn Band-Aid off.

*

She did not have to grip the grass for long.

The homecomer and Sugar Bear emerged

on the gangway. She held a match in her

teeth and sharp sparks in her exhausted eyes.

*

We backed out of her blasting radius,

careful not to spill fizzy mimosas

on our silky drawers. Someone handed out

goggles, another passed out umbrellas.

*

A young lady in a spiked denim vest

described how it happened: how she struck the

match and lit a fuse with her teeth. How she

spat the smoking stick straight into the sea.

*

We held our breath as we watched them escape,

as she turned her back to shield Sugar Bear.

We watched as the frigate erupted, scraps

of a past-life raining down around her.

*

We cheered for her punctured and bleeding legs

as they brought her seared mind and golden heart,

her still-healing womb and Sugar Bear to

safety. And there, on the green grass, they lay.

*

A woman in a glistening sequins gown

told of how the black widows formed a heart

around the mother and her child. Of how

we tended to them with gauze, prayer, and smiles.

*

At dusk, they slept in peace. We lit candles

one by one and sent them into the sea.

She woke and watched the flames on the ocean.

She said it reminded her of herself

*

and she wept vehemently. We let her.

*

Our own babies fell asleep in our laps

as we prayed for her, the falling, and the

faltering. We sang for the ones who were

too late. We sang hymns of hope in the dark.