Green Linden Press

The Bath of Time                                                                                               —Matthew Rotando


Everyone I know who says you can’t go back to the past lives there. The sun is 865,000 miles in
diameter. That means almost nothing next to the depth of time. Your skin is flying off at just about
the same speed that it grows back, until a little man with a bushy black mustache sneaks in your
window, chuckles, and puts you to sleep. He takes off his hat and gloves before he goes to work.
Goats bleat in the distance. No one feels the room go cold. No one listens for the snakes in the
carpet. The blood in your throat tastes like rust. You wave and weakly wave goodbye goodbye.
The soft skin on your hand moves through the air like an arc of water tossed from a bucket.