by Fiona Rose
With my feet planted in the sand,
I’ve started to notice an unseen heat
that rises, draws water from my skin,
in the same way the ocean currents circle
the earth, and the blood cycles through me.
The room was filled with a stale warmth,
the kind that sends a cavalry of sweat
to scout the small of your back.
I was late. It went in the report.
Sat there, sweating,
pulling at hangnails.
What happens when
the threads of skin
don’t stop at my hands?
Could the doctor diagnose that you were made of wood?
soaked in salt, sopping wet, and crawling up the shore
or that you scraped your way back down through the sand,
slow, to lay adrift on the words you couldn’t muster.
Does the creature nestled in a rabbit hole
remember its last thought before death?
do the dreams live beneath the hide,
dreams and death and
Would she hear the shallow breaths,
the ones that were almost silent,
when the world had whispered you in?
About the author:
Fiona Rose is a writer, musician, and artist residing in Portland, Oregon. A poet and editor, her work has been featured in Poets Choice, The Closed Eye Open, and Cathexis Northwest Press, and served as an Editor for The Pointed Circle.