The cut on my ankle bleeds into the shape of an exclamation point

You speak and it comes out ornate

swirling, as if from an an ancient book

I’m trying to follow those letters

which are, inevitably,

words, through the tall yellow grasses

at the edge of the lagoon

where your charm bracelet lays splayed in the sand

and my nose disappears into the blue

Let me tell you about swimming:

The bleeding stops

The world ends long enough for you to miss it

The cold snaps, like a spell from the end of a wand

melting fear into a body

the weightlessness unhowling me

In the water your words circle me

floating in amongst the moon jellies

On my back I watch my breasts like two pale ducks bob in the gentle waves

I watch them fly away

Your words bend into the exclamation point

Make a portal of me

A sentence of me

A loudness of me

I paddle back to shore

a pearl growing under my tongue

I settle into the meat between land and sea

and decide to stay there

————————————–

Asha Berkes called us from Tacoma, WA.

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