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By Victoria Herdegen
Published in the 2023 journal.
Dark water gapes. Ink.
(Oh good, you’re still awake)
Headlights halo an ocean of fog.
(I couldn’t find any—)
The water is velvet, like air.
(You remembered that?)
Sunlight bleeds through the blanket of mist.
(...makes it obvious)
Undersea caves;
Pockets of breath still caught in the kiss of the tide.
Pearls of light peel;
Layers of calcium shattered by raindrops like feathers—
Fissures of friction (fiction) fractal from a sheet of ice
Scattered with snowflakes that boil
In the recoil of a laugh.
Do you remember how it feels to breathe?
I (12:34) am
(Crying over spilled ribbons)
The water is night
And the night holds as gently as the ocean.
Flares turn fog and cloud to flame
An almost, a nothing.
And in this water
(I am the space between the phosphenes in your eyes)