Stainless Colors

Mureall Hebert

          
          
My father is a puddle. I step into him with wader boots, splash through him only to have him evaporate under the sun. My father rains from the sky and gathers in a hollow cleft. I look for minnows in his body but find only drifters. Skybreaks reflect on his surface, creased from gusts of wind. My father is the drop of a rock from a mountaintop into the river below. He is the ripple and the wave. He is surface cracked. Always an enigma, he is born from a cord of wood hewn by axes, a fire-starter coaxing drops of condensation. My father is a locked box into which he pours his puddle. He is the snap of gravity, groundwater risen. I wear him like water.
          
          

Mureall Hebert lives near Seattle, WA with her family. Her work can be found in Carve, Hobart, [PANK], decomP, and elsewhere. She’s been nominated for Best New Poets, a Pushcart Prize, and an honorable mention in Glimmer Train’s Very Short Fiction contest. Her chapbook was a finalist in Split Rock Press’s 2020 chapbook series contest. She’s a reader for CLMP’s annual Firecracker Awards. Mureall holds an MFA from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts.