Sunk
by Yumi Dineen Shiroma
and in the water's close my wrists are bound, hair snarled like weeds, flaring in this fractured light. a crowd has come, who breathed once the air which fails my lungs, who tended their sick with cracked hands and salt tears and ate of my earth, of ours blue within green within blue these cattails whispered once but they have turned their backs. they dance on the banks and are mute this pull, the sun's wash I remember how they dragged me from the hearth, the dark, their talk of evil eyes they could not meet this stretch between my lips and life and they bloodied my feet my palms with pins' pricks, as though I were leather, stubborn, refusing to tear lungs, twin stones in my chest I claim only years and crows, bent at my door like suitors' knees. but if you urge confession I will say: if I could buoy myself I would wash you in brine. if I could fly, sprout at last my wind-soaked wings — I would dig fingers in the air and climb until the stars fell
Yumi Dineen Shiroma is a student at Swarthmore College and a graduate of the Alpha writers' workshop. In addition to poetry, she writes stories about unhappy leftists and trains. Her favorite fruit is the blackberry, though she is partial to the word "kumquat." She can be reached at yumidineenshiroma@gmail.com.
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