by Wren Tuatha

My Baltimore in the water
Steel and gasoline in the water
Car seats and wallets in the water
Tires, steering wheels, paper maps in the water
Responders, lights, radios in and out of the water
Third eye of the world in the water
Someone bound for home in the water
Someone at home waiting…the water…
The pledge of youth in the water
Reckless ambitions, retirement, holidays, in the water
A boat of blame in the water
The Eastern Shore screaming to the sunrise
     for a bridge of light
In the water, molecules of far forests and
      plastic containers
The water a container
Triggering associations and
      unwritten list poems in the water
Music and the composer in the water

Trajectory of a life or a falling object
Injuries and the object permanence
     of bodies underwater
What we will recover and what we will lose
     to tides and the silty bottom
          of the water

Whose dream is breath, held, halfway across?

Wren Tuatha is a queer, disabled poet, her MFA from Goddard College. Her first collection is Thistle and Brilliant (FLP). Her poetry appears in Slipstream, Seneca Review, Inverted Syntax, Hunger Mountain, NonBinary Review, Sinister Wisdom, The Citron Review, and others. She’s formerly Artist-in-Residence at Heathcote Center. Wren and partner, author/activist C.T. Butler, herd rescue goats among the Finger Lakes of New York, where she is director of the forming Ithaca Poetry Center.