Undertow

My sister and I were always desert women,
drawn to water and dreaming
of sylvan labyrinths zagging across
all those flat horizons we had
grown so used to.
My father, already sunken within the depths
of wife and daughters
had a fascination with fish, aquariums
nervously bubbling on tables in every room
as arid sand whispered at the glass,
layer upon layer of sediments
settling for just a glimpse at moisture.

When we stared through windows,
we hallucinated Ghost Shrimp
crawling across the chunks of granite
lying in undulated hills over the front yard.
Then scorpions would appear from beneath
wind smoothed rocks,
and we would turn to the living room again.

I kept a scorpion in the house,
floating and drowned in blue colored plastic,
souvenir from a trip to Raw Hide.
Its dead tail curved defiantly,
glitter and bubbles
ribboned around its body in rigid currents.

Later, when we were older but still craving
oceans and the noisy trickle of forest streams,
my father had a pool built amongst the gravel.
My sister and I held hands, placed our feet
on the first step and felt the skin
of our ankles join with water.
We never broke the surface again.