Breathing Underwater by Emaan Mahmud.
for my thinking is made from liquid
in sleep my lover breathes tidal against my bones
and hers are dreams I wish myself inhaled into
always I have had being without this body to consider
and because my father’s cough is a storm swell
I ask a star from what coast sails the lung
which will eventually explode him
and the star tells me what has passed through
so much blue must stop passing here
I have seen my grandfather lost in the foam
and his Alzheimer’s slipping between
my mother’s fingers and her hair behind her
all over the wrecked sand like seaweed
for I am the shore where everyone I love ends
the brown of my mother’s perm pulling apart
the three gone teeth from my father’s mouth
fallen down and my sister Sarah is a scattered mist
I can’t gather together how long a crew must pass as one
through water before it arrives at its disintegration
is it the wind the crew shares or a family touching is it love
for I am so solid I am told I am so solid the star told
and what would I know of holding a thing not me together
I am neither ship nor ocean
I am the thing the ocean wrecks the ship into
~ Ephraim Scott Sommers
Ephraim Scott Sommers is currently working on his PhD at Western Michigan University, where he teaches creative writing. A singer and guitar player, Ephraim has produced three full-length albums of music and toured both nationally with his band Siko and internationally as a solo artist.
