Trim

Yalie Saweda Kamara

At the end

of the story,

we exchanged

hair. Two tiny

Ziploc bags,

little plastic

windows.

I sheared off

the tip

of my braid,

candlewick

twist-tight.

Please

use these

dead cells

to make

new words.

We never

baked

the blueberry

crumble:

let the

mashed bowl

of indigo

fruit

on the

counter

be your ink.

Dip me

whole

into the

sweet

blood &

try to

write

about

cutting

hair &

a scissor’s

song,

its sound

akin to

a memory

holding its

own

breath.

I wear

your black

cursive

on my chin,

& imagine

being the

teenaged boy

that you will

raise

with a lover

that looks

like me.

I wrap

you around

my wedding

finger, pull

& watch

you snap back

until you yawn.

I dress

you in the

foam of

apricot shampoo,

spin you in

my palm

to wash out

time.

At midnight,

you lay me

at the nape

of your neck,

guarding

your spine,

in the blue violet

of dream’s

intermissions.

We are

climbing

strands

to each other’s

roots,

searching

for homes

that we

have

already

passed.

Behind

your head

& in my hands,

we are closer

than secret.

I Could Be a Whale Shark

Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Bolinao, Philippines

I am worried about tentacles.

How you can still get stung

even if the jelly arm disconnects

from the bell. My husband

swims without me—farther

out to sea than I would like,

buoyed by salt and rind of kelp.

I am worried if I step too far

into the China Sea, my baby

will slow the beautiful kicks

he has just begun since we landed.

The quickening, they call it,

but all I am is slow, a moon jelly

floating like a bag in the sea.

Or a whale shark. Yes—I could be

a whale shark, newly spotted

with moles from the pregnancy—

my wide mouth always open

to eat and eat with a look that says

Surprise! Did I eat that much?

When I sleep, I am a flutefish,

just lying there, swaying back

and forth among the kelpy mess

of sheets. You can see the wet

of my dark eye awake, awake.

My husband is a pale blur

near the horizon, full of adobo

and not waiting thirty minutes

before swimming. He is free

and waves at me as he backstrokes

past. This is how he prepares

for fatherhood. Such tenderness

still lingers in the air: the Roman

poet Virgil gave his pet fly

the most lavish funeral, complete

with meat feast and barrels

of oaky wine. You can never know

where or why you hear

a humming on this soft earth.

From Oceanic (Copper Canyon Press, 2018). Copyright © 2018 by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.m on behalf of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org. All rights reserved.

The moon rose over the bay. I had a lot of feelings.

Donika Kelly

I am taken with the hot animal
of my skin, grateful to swing my limbs

and have them move as I intend, though
my knee, though my shoulder, though something
is torn or tearing. Today, a dozen squid, dead

on the harbor beach: one mostly buried,
one with skin empty as a shell and hollow

feeling, and, though the tentacles look soft,
I do not touch them. I imagine they
were startled to find themselves in the sun.

I imagine the tide simply went out
without them. I imagine they cannot

feel the black flies charting the raised hills
of their eyes. I write my name in the sand:
Donika Kelly. I watch eighteen seagulls

skim the sandbar and lift low in the sky.
I pick up a pebble that looks like a green egg.

To the ditch lily I say I am in love.
To the Jeep parked haphazardly on the narrow
street I am in love. To the roses, white

petals rimmed brown, to the yellow lined
pavement, to the house trimmed in gold I am

in love. I shout with the rough calculus
of walking. Just let me find my way back,
let me move like a tide come in.