Kristina Percy
My son wants to know why he can't say fuck
Because someone uncountable lifetimes ago decided
it was rude. Because my mother, who hasn’t even lived
one lifetime yet, still thinks it is a little rude. Because
your teachers will think I am a terrible parent,
letting you swear at your age. Maybe
if I let my son say fuck as a child it will grow
into any other word: wrinkle or bushwhack or apricot.
What word will he use when his first love leaves him
to work on a sailboat? When they come back? Sluice.
Carbonated. When his skin sings jumping
into a December lake? Tailgate. What is the word
for when your mother forgets your birthday,
can no longer lift her mug of mint tea? Mom,
what do you mean you were at the hospital?
Why didn't you tell me? I would have come,
I could have helped. Mom, what the fridge?
~
Career aspirations, age six
Our neighbour, the dive instructor, tells us
one of her students is now a sewer diver
making a hundred grand working half a year
clearing our pipes of all the shit that isn’t shit:
tampons & baby wipes & huge rotting tangles
of hair. Who doesn’t know you’re not supposed to flush
tampons? I scoff (as if I also knew you’re not supposed
to flush hair). Later, my daughter insists she wants
to be a sewer diver when she grows up. I nod,
like maybe I think this is an excellent career choice;
or maybe I am just enjoying the angelhair
pasta she requested for dinner. I don’t say so,
but when she grows up I hope
we won’t even need sewer divers because no one
will put anything in the toilet that doesn’t belong there.
Listen, I know that’s not realistic (you’re how old
& don’t pretend you knew hair was on that list).
I know of all the things that need our attention, this one
can probably wait. Will you let me have it anyways?
Let me imagine my daughter in some distant
future where we are all exquisitely careful.
In this future she is telling her own child,
my granddaughter, When I was a kid
it was someone’s job to swim in shit
because everyone flushed things down the toilet
they shouldn’t have. Let me laugh
at the improbability of such a thing:
a granddaughter, a future.
~
Fairy Griefmother
You have the wrong address, I said. I don’t know
you. Shifted the groceries between my hips, shut
the door tight, like I meant it. I cried when the baby cried
& named it rage. When my son laughed
without breathing; when he grabbed my fingers
& wouldn’t sleep; ate only plums & learned
to say No; all those years, I would not take her calls.
You are mistaken, I insisted, any time she tricked me
into picking up. Finally, she snuck into the kitchen
while we were out walking nowhere at all. I could smell her,
thick like a green river, as the sun chased us
back inside. Why don't you help someone
who actually needs it! I shouted, desperate
to convince all of us that I didn't. Can’t you see
that no one is dead here? I waved both hands at my living,
screaming child. She looked hard at me but said nothing
as she lifted the sponge from its sinkwater & began
to wash out last week's noodles. I wanted her so badly
to be a stranger. She made a pot of peppermint tea,
refilled the soap in every bathroom. I never told her
where anything was & she didn’t ask. She just moved
through the house, silently, like she already knew.
Kristina Percy (she/ her) lives on Vancouver Island, BC in the traditional territories of the Ligwiłda’xw people. Neither of her degrees have anything to do with creative writing. Her debut collection, Both True, was a runner up in the 2024 Button Poetry Chapbook Contest & while most of Kristina's work lives in her Gmail drafts, you can also find her on Instagram @__kpwrites.
