self-portrait as the local legend
by Ashleigh Kennedy
after Mary-Kim Arnold
what you’ve heard about me
just might be true. i am
nobody’s daughter but
my own; nobody knows
where i come from. the days
get hotter, and i spend them
like change, dip my toes
in different dive-bars, sip
my summers among
the strange. silly
humans. they see me dance on knives
and call it art,
mystique. pain, to them,
is mere tragedy.
maybe they’re right. what am i, after all,
but performance? dinner
and a show? but they don’t know
what it means to straddle
an ocean, to strut as if
you’ll never
fall. and here
is my little secret: each night
i answer the moon’s
slow crawl, press
my body into
blue, the slap
of seafoam on
my skin. i name
the river’s mouth
my mother, its kiss
my only next
of kin, and when
the tide drafts a bed
of sand, and the river
merchant calls me
his own, his love for me
a fevered sound, I tell him there is
a catch: you must unearth
me in the sweetest
deep; to love me
you must dream
and drown.