when my father lays salt

on the stairs

of our crystalized steps,

do the slugs

take cover

under the oven?

or do they simply smell the cookies

above them,

burnt from my mother’s absent head?

tell me what it’s like

to be liquid —

to melt from white dust

that looks like glitter to the privileged —

to the ones that don’t know what it’s like to be soft.

to be malleable

in a place that’s rigid.

the air is ice now.

the steps are a

puddle.

“be careful

where you step,”

my father’s

mouth says.

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