by Amber Jensen<\/p>\n
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At bath time I lift a sliver of silver\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n letting loose the water that will rinse you\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n clean. My fingers test the bubbling current\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n pull back, nudge the knob closer to heat.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n I want so badly to protect you, and yet\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n you question everything: the temperature\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n of water, and the steam rising, as if\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n it was a warm front colliding with the side\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n of a mountain or wall of cool air\u2014\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n something that might turn it violent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n I tug your sleeve, encourage your slim arm\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n to fold in on itself, find its way free, I slide\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n shirt over smooth skull, careful not to suffocate\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n you, unclothed, vulnerable, test the water, cringe.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n It’s hot, you say, but it’s not, and I wonder\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n how a child learns to doubt everything, senses\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n the dangerous coexistence of downdrafts and updrafts,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n knows to fear the potential vertical growth\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n of the towering cumulous and the eddies whirling\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n at the edges of a storm yet unpredicted.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n you bathe quickly, splashing and laughing, for a moment\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n forgetting to calculate everything, but I cannot prevent\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n the water\u2019s cooling, or the natural patterns of air,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n moisture condensing into water droplets that might slide\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n gently down porcelain walls, or form water droplets, hailstones,<\/p>\n <\/p>\n a thunderstorm cell. You observe it all and question\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n rather than assert, emerge blue-lipped, trembling,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n baptized in worry, burdened with blessing, testing\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n the world, and the best I can do is wrap you in warm\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n terry cloth, dry your thin skin, anoint you with oil.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Amber Jensen\u2019s\u00a0essays and poetry\u00a0have\u00a0previously been published in North<\/em>\u00a0Dakota Quarterly<\/i>, Pasque Petals<\/i>, Assisi<\/i>, at\u00a0O-Dark-Thirty.org,\u00a0<\/i>and in the anthology Red White and True: Stories of Military Veterans and Families, WWII to Present<\/i>. Her first book,\u00a0The Smoke of You: A Memoir of Love During and After Deployment<\/i>, was released in March 2023.<\/p>\n
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