Washed in the blood
Samantha and I went to Christian camp
each summer. We flung marbles from slingshots
waded through creeks, caught crawfish, were baptized
and received into white, sun-warm, cotton
towels. During Bible study, we’d catch
in cupped hands the daddy long legs loping
across the lichened rocks, enthralled with our
mettle for touching something so disgusting.
We didn’t kill them but instead
plucked one, two, three, even (greedy) four legs
from their brown bodies to watch them in jolts
drag themselves out of the sun. And we laughed
and ran to play carpet ball with our friends,
our limbs cartwheeling madly, as if boasting.
Rebecca Longenecker is a former resident of Indianapolis. She currently lives in Seattle, Washington. Her work has previously been published in Flying Island as well as Havik; Bridge Literary Journal; Wilderness House Literary Review; Rhubarb Magazine; The Pointed Circle; Prospectus; Eclectica; and Montana Mouthful.