Danez Smith
Was always mouth
open, mouth deep
-blue, toothless swallow
beautiful, wet cemetery
for the gilled & unblessed
busy with fish & failed limbs.
I still don't know if I died.
They say the life you are born
as water is the life
you never stop living.
Who says that?
I have no idea.
Work with me.
Maybe I've been a lake ever since
just learned to leg and arm
tamed my mouth into a sharp circle
who only drowns what walks away.
What was water
has blossomed
to blood, what was fish
now anti-body.
Don't let this
fickle flesh fool you.
I can still be all
that damn water.
Cut me down
the center. Watch
the room flood.
My body, once a spot,
now everywhere again, hungry
for what hungers for air.