Moses or Icarus & Free Diving

Moses or Icarus

You’re twenty-something. You’re in bed / listening to the clock ticking on repeat / because you’ve 
forgotten how to breathe / but sometimes this feels close enough. / There’s the ocean / the damp
earth / the land at the end of the parted sea / the boy. / He hasn’t said anything today, / he’s letting
you cry in his old t-shirt, / its frayed neckline. / The world has been terrible again / because you’ve
realized the anesthesia isn’t wearing off, / and it isn’t the anesthesia at all / but a permanent / injury.
/ Half of your mouth can speak and smile and kiss and taste, / the other half is damaged / weight.
/ You’re afraid. / The boy is trying to make you / stop crying / and you’re swallowing the panic, /
but your tongue’s still numb and you can’t remember what it feels like to come down / to ground
/ to bite something / without that sharp pinch in your stomach / your chest / your teeth. / He shifts
closer, then / kisses / your mouth. / You think maybe he’s forgotten / that only half of you / can feel
him like this / or maybe he’s ignoring it. / But you let your chest / twine around his chest /
nonetheless. / And it feels like years ago, / the first time you realized / you could pray / without
begging / on your knees. / But you tell him / none of this, / none of the faith and the quiet sun
steeping / wax dripping / drowning. / Instead, you say,  
                        I had a dream a few days ago. / I was in a house by the sea. / You / were there too.

Free Diving

My tongue lapping
            the shore. Foam gushing
into throat. Sea salt
            wrinkling fingertips,
they turn into
            dried sour plums – 
a taste from childhood 
            I’d forgotten
how to pronounce.
            My mouth is reshaping 
around 
            a damaged nerve, 
and I am learning to relax
            the jaw – to sheathe
with fissured lips,
            a heartbeat. As if tenderness
means having
            the choice to sink
teeth
            into hardwood. A lifeboat
corroded by salt air.
            Or a tree at the back
of my grandparents’ house
            and the smooth
purplish maroon 
            plums that ruptured
with yellow flesh.
            Now I lick the seaweed
trailing down the navel.
            I no longer feel safe on land.
Only here, where 
            I am soaked and sinking.
Learning from the waves
            all the soft and violent
ways to swallow.

Shirin Abedinirad, Mirrored Ziggurat, 2015. Installation art, Sydney, Australia. Presented at Underbelly Arts Festival, the work draws on the ancient Mesopotamian ziggurat as a structure linking earth and sky, transforming its seven mirrored levels into a luminous ascent through history, nature, self-reflection, and the mystical promise of paradise. Artwork courtesy of featured artist Shirin Abedinirad.