Callista Buchen

ETHER

You have a sleeping child wrapped to your chest, your belly and hips numb, arms full, and you think, what burns? what sails?
Let's say you are a mother.

Let's say you want to build a paddle wheel to dance inside. You think, Why not? You would thrash and throw your hair, how
you would churn your bodies into white foam. So much of a mother is liquid.

Let's say fog. Even in your imagination, the wheel whirls where it stands, and you gasp, the child gasps, until the wetness
slides over you like a blanket. Where do you need to go, anyway? Let's say you don't notice.

Callista Buchen is the author of The Bloody Planet (Black Lawrence Press, October 2015) and Double-Mouthed (dancing girl press, winter 2016). She is the winner of DIAGRAM's essay contest and the Langston Hughes award. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Harpur Palate, Puerto del Sol, Fourteen Hills, Blue Mesa Review, PANK, and many others.