The Drowning                                                                                 

A Poem by Christina Kapp

Her face would have grown,

stretched round and flat

as a dinner plate

on an empty table.

It would have glimmered

with hopeful appetite

letting the silk of her dress

catch the light’s rippled

rush, romance

slithering her sequins

like a fish’s scales:

a sheath of flat, graceful

muscle, a superpower

of stillness. I drop.

I scatter like oil.

She reflects the surface

of the moon,

teasing out the darkness

with her fingertips

her lips rising like bread

on the water, splitting

open, releasing her heat.

I want her to tell me

what is inside my eyes,

the silence of underwater

pools, water forming words

refracting truth

to look like prayer.


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