Issue 45.1 Summer/Fall 2024

Diagnosis as Iceberg

Iceberg

I will not live
            fractured and cold,

selves shard severed
            until I cannot

find my way
            home. An ocean

is no place
            to hide. Broken

bodies claim here—
            ships and sharks

surrendered as teeth
            to claim the abyss.

They know how
            far the bottom lies.

The world would
            make me lose

simply by existing,
            like the turtle vanished

or the oldest living
            mollusk cracked wide

as the warming tide
            researchers discovering only

death inside. I am
            trying to harden.

I do not want
            a watered-down life.

 

 

Photo by Asile Clairette on Unsplash