Acrylic, 36” x 24”, Framed

per singularity

By Cora Ellen Nimmo

Mama told us, “No going up the hill.”  Not after that fisherwoman deal.  

We’d been up there earlier that day to cool off.  To sit on the small rotting dock, catch tadpoles, look for turtles, lizards, or small snakes to snare, examine, torture with sweaty palms, maybe skip rocks; we’d trap air inside our swimsuits and watch it bubble out like nuclear farts rising up to destroy us with laughter.  We picked wild berries and dug thorns out of each other’s skin, slapping our faces with handfuls of bank-mud if we squirmed, drowning horse flies that swarmed our bobbing heads.  We sang – time passed in singularity.  

That woman had caught a large sunfish, which was found rotting and picked at by birds inside the boat.   

Weeks later, we found her phone.  Her screensaver was a selfie: squinting in front of a rainbow, holding up that fish if you believe it.