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Doris Lynch

Writing on Skin

Carol and I, Irish twins, share a bed these light-filled June nights. We’re eight and nine. Sent to bed early, we decide to play the alphabet game. It begins simply, Carol rolls on her side, pulls up her sleeveless pajama top. I squiggle closer and write a letter on her salt-damp skin, avoiding ones with dots or dangling tails. In my neatest cursive, I inscribe a “k.” But Carol guesses it immediately. Same with “r” and “e.” “A” is a breeze, and she calls out “c” before I have arced the consonant’s first curve.

“Let’s leap to the bigger guns,” I say skipping from letter to phrase, eliminating our usual second round: words. “Hopping mad,” I scribble super-fast. “How,” Carol begins, hesitantly, “How now, brown cow?’”

“Course not,” I sneer.

For nearly an hour we take turns offering our backs for blackboards, fingers for chalk. “Do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” “There’s nothing like a dame.” “It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea.”

litany of syllables
from mulberry's crown
mockingbird's razzmatazz

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About the Author

Celebrating her first decade writing haibun, Doris Lynch has recent work in Haibun Today, cho, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, and FemkuMag. She also writes in longer forms.