The Last Thing I Drank Was Clear

The last thing I drank was clear.

The number of times I’ve had
to repeat this reproduces, every
anesthesiologist preparing for
vomit, I guess. My apologies — 

I did not mean to spit that out,
start your day with such a gross
sort of showering, you alongside 
me, half naked on a frigid table, 
foaming like a geyser’s mouth.
I meant to say something more 

profound, poetic, give you a 
peaceful lake of words, 
transparent shallow that,
if you sit still in it long enough  
you hardly feel anything but 

weightless. Yet everything known 
erupts from it: ripples, polliwogs, 
mud skippers, algae, iron, and salt,
the much argued primordial ooze
we think long ago might have made 
us humans. Instead…I’m discussing

puke. But even that comes from 
what I last drank, derivative of 
placenta and womb, we who are more
than fifty-percent liquid, yet we move  
through life like we’re solid. As if we're
matter. Like we can’t evaporate. 
   
Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, copyright June 20, 2024, all rights reserved
Inspired by Caiti Quatmann