Improv 2 Week 1

A portion of “Current” by Khadijah Queen

Of course, fingerprints do not
Evaporate if a woman somewhere

Soars horizontally out to sea.
But how not to

Seize the oscillation, dive under,
Fearless, no longer blind
To parallels.

---

Of course, fingerprints evaporate
from a prepubescent child. Wisps of water,
not oil coat fingertip cracks and
if not careful, traces of a
stolen child disappear
in an hour. The mother’s screams only
heat air faster, urging the marks to
vanish like the name of the girl
in the Volvo cab. Vanish as easily as
hair threads from scalp for him to
finger eternally as even she
drowns in her own water. An hour
couldn’t mist the lake fast enough and she
only had four minutes to graze the bottom.