Sunday School

I was baptized in a mountain spring
alongside my cousin nick, my mother
was the saint that spread
holy water across my head
her fingernails filed and the halfmoons white and freed
from her cuticles
she always said
she wasn't sure
about god.
The pads of her fingers are dry
from dish soap
cheap soap
apple cider vinegar and water
cleans windows and countertops
whole milk is good for the bones children
are gifts from god she would say
if god is up there.
Her touch feels like what
a cloud looks like, cool
like sticking your hand in a pot of flour
and feeling it
sift
through the tucked and folded skin hidden in
hard to reach places.
She would let me fall asleep
with my hand on her neck in
the soft rounded special spot under her
chin where the warmth
of her pulse slowing
would be singing along with our
dreams
hearbeats aligned and in rhythm.
She and her sister they baptized
babydolls
here at the spring
the water sprouted from the hill above their house and fed
their family
they cupped it in their palms and splashed their faces
the clearest, coldest water in the whole wide world it was
infected
with ecoli
some years later
my brother helped my cousin Nick rebuild
fasten a cover to keep
the bad things out
sometimes I move the rocks that hold it down and stick my
head in there
dip the tips of my hair in the water
until the loose S's and J's will unravel and fray
like a rope
unwound.
I listen to the echo of the water churning
blurping
way down deep in the stomach of the ground.
This is where god would come
if he was thirsty,
if he could be thirsty.

Clara Mae Barnhart