Swimming
For the thrum and sputter of it,
For the echo of your every
Breath, and short gasp, little plunge back,
Your airy exhale trailing you—
You are maker of small bubbles,
Of this and that splash—and for the
Distance deepening beneath you,
Though you float atop the water
And across—for the suspension,
Distortion, alien beats dropping,
The splooshing of your surfacing,
Sharp return to silence upon
Immersion, deep relief of your
Wet embrace of space, and pressure
In your ear augments, but you dive
And dive yet, touch the bottom, vault
Your body up to kick and break
Surface and feed your greedy lungs
Rhythmically slicing your butter-
Knife fingertips, pulling, stretching,
Liquid burning of the turn as
You flip into amphibian.
Hypochondria
Been
Waking so hard.
Been waking in the dark, cutting the
Sunrise to be first in line. Don’t know if it minds. Been waking in
Odd ways. Known old objects turn strange. See that fat brick of a suitcase,
Roosted? See those hobgoblins of bath
Towels, how they
Float
Like
Cartoonish ghosts.
My wardrobe portal is beckoning,
Rectangularly gesturing for me to go. I cannot know
Where, probably hell or my crazed dreams. First thing I thought when all those
Crazy gray shapes ate me: Where am I?
And an angel,
Arms
Too
Far open, snuck
Right under my pride flag—now color-
Less and ballooning out from the wall—and I smoothed that angel gone.
I smothered her away. I hate it when shit gets all gray and strange,
Because it reminds me of kid me,
Nighlighted, tucked
All
Snug,
And surveilling
Shadows, like that suspicious half-faced
One cast by the bookshelf. Reminds me of tossing in my polka-
Dotted blanket, seeing frightening green sparks, abandoning bed.
Grandma asked me what I was doing,
And I told her
I
Was
Finding different
Pajamas. I was scared to say that
The static electricity scared me, and still I feel afraid
Of things I don’t need to be afraid of, and today I over-
Dosed on coffee, angering my nerves.
Too hot, the room.
I
Feel
A little faint
Tonight. Reminds me of the summer
I learned the strength of my own stubborn head. Came to in the bathtub,
With lousy chunks of tile and rubble for bedfellows. First thing
I do when I realize what happened
To the soap dish:
Feel
The
Back of my skull
For blood and cracks and brains and oozing.
Proud, puffing, concussions. I have light contusions. I imagine
Eulogies. I picture my body found broken in the bathtub.
I get ready for my heart to halt
When it beats too
Fast.
On Ritual
May-
Be I
Should eat more
Bread, and fewer
Olives. Maybe I
Should sacrifice a sheep,
Then turn its liver over
To see if the gods are pissed off
Or pleased. Maybe I should praise Daphne
Or Hecate. I would need it like sleep.
Abigail Cohrs is a poet of sound and form, a syllabics enthusiast, and assonance obsessed. For the love of language, she edits, writes, and reads.