Cartilaginous Boy

Abstract

Cartilaginous Boy Stephen Hundley (bio) Cartilaginous Boy There is a shark in the bathtub. I feel it while I soak.The water is blackened, and I am transformed by play in the sugar sands of the road, the green belts of marsh,the wooded islands where so many hog tracks were found. The shark will be my body, and I will never surfaceat dinner's call. I will chase the rays through river bends. Summer has dusted the porch screens yellow, and nightbugs trill to come inside. I am surprised by the tickle of a washcloth on my feet. Between my toes. The stifleof Georgia in July, like living in a giant's mouth. But it is wonderful to wash the body, to wet and wring and scrape,beginning with my boney boy shoulder, my collar's poke, the lumps of ribs, the sharp points of hips. It is a delightto feel hairless skin roughen and grey, prickle to fine grit, to watch the belly whiten and teeth find their serrated edge,while toes curl and fuse. It is a pleasure to wash outdoors with the mosquitoes singing and the dogs hanging their headsover the enameled lip to smell my hair, and my skinny body hidden in the mud and the salt, back cupped by the clawfoot.From still water, my knee peeks. [End Page 34] Stephen Hundley Stephen Hundley is the author The Aliens Will Come to Georgia First (University of North Georgia Press, 2021). His work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Cutbank, Carve, and other journals. He serves as the fiction editor for The Swamp and is a Richard Ford Fellow at the University of Mississippi. Copyright © 2020 University of Wisconsin Board of Regents