Christy Prahl
Water Trick
When October unlatched itself
from September, the origin
of blood was no longer
mosquitoes but incisions
sliced from dry air.
The knuckles, mainly.
The bend. The lines in my hand
once translated by a palm
reader who said I’d live
long but sorry.
People were always saying things
you shouldn’t say to children.
I heard it all
and grew up early.
In the years before,
I was dumb as a doctor
kit and reckoned
if my hands were dry,
the best medicine was water.
I stretched my fingers
under the pink bathroom
faucet till the blood washed
away and I could make
a tight fist like Ali.
Three minutes later,
bleeding again, and back
to the bathroom sink
for rinsing.
I think of how it seemed so plain
it could have cut me the rest of my life.
from September, the origin
of blood was no longer
mosquitoes but incisions
sliced from dry air.
The knuckles, mainly.
The bend. The lines in my hand
once translated by a palm
reader who said I’d live
long but sorry.
People were always saying things
you shouldn’t say to children.
I heard it all
and grew up early.
In the years before,
I was dumb as a doctor
kit and reckoned
if my hands were dry,
the best medicine was water.
I stretched my fingers
under the pink bathroom
faucet till the blood washed
away and I could make
a tight fist like Ali.
Three minutes later,
bleeding again, and back
to the bathroom sink
for rinsing.
I think of how it seemed so plain
it could have cut me the rest of my life.
Scenic Lakes, New Jersey, 1971
We arrived before pavement,
our caravan of sedans
spattered with grit,
WASH ME smeared
into back windows
by tiny rogue fingers.
Regular comedians,
we fleshy children
of women
and men, our families pulling
into garages low as the houses,
transferring cardboard boxes
into foundations
carved from the side
of the hills.
What would we become here?
we wondered.
Who would we love?
We were the people
underneath the road,
homes built hastily
on land that kissed
the woods and all
the menace they held.
That first night we
ate a picnic dinner
on the living room floor.
The second night got lit up by stars.
The third it rained a conversation
through the night,
keeping us awake, realizing
how little we knew about trees
and how they fall.
our caravan of sedans
spattered with grit,
WASH ME smeared
into back windows
by tiny rogue fingers.
Regular comedians,
we fleshy children
of women
and men, our families pulling
into garages low as the houses,
transferring cardboard boxes
into foundations
carved from the side
of the hills.
What would we become here?
we wondered.
Who would we love?
We were the people
underneath the road,
homes built hastily
on land that kissed
the woods and all
the menace they held.
That first night we
ate a picnic dinner
on the living room floor.
The second night got lit up by stars.
The third it rained a conversation
through the night,
keeping us awake, realizing
how little we knew about trees
and how they fall.
--
Christy Prahl is an Illinois Arts Council grant recipient and the author of the poetry collections We Are Reckless (Cornerstone Press, 2023), With Her Hair on Fire (Roadside Press, 2025), and Catalog of Labors (Unsolicited Press, fall 2026). A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, her work has been featured in Poetry Daily as well as many national and international journals, including the Asheville Poetry Review, CALYX, Rattle, Louisville Review, Penn Review, Sugar House Review, Salt Hill Journal, and others. She was a featured poet on the Hive Poetry Collective podcast in April 2025, and two of her poems have been set to music by post-punk musicians. She splits her time between a small workers’ cottage in Chicago and refurbished Quonset hut in southwest Michigan.
Christy Prahl is an Illinois Arts Council grant recipient and the author of the poetry collections We Are Reckless (Cornerstone Press, 2023), With Her Hair on Fire (Roadside Press, 2025), and Catalog of Labors (Unsolicited Press, fall 2026). A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, her work has been featured in Poetry Daily as well as many national and international journals, including the Asheville Poetry Review, CALYX, Rattle, Louisville Review, Penn Review, Sugar House Review, Salt Hill Journal, and others. She was a featured poet on the Hive Poetry Collective podcast in April 2025, and two of her poems have been set to music by post-punk musicians. She splits her time between a small workers’ cottage in Chicago and refurbished Quonset hut in southwest Michigan.