by Fiona Rose

With my feet planted in the sand,
I’ve started to notice an unseen heat 
that rises, draws water from my skin,
 in the same way the ocean currents circle 
the earth, and the blood cycles through me.

The room was filled with a stale warmth,
the kind that sends a cavalry of sweat 
to scout the small of your back.

I was late. It went in the report.
Sat there, sweating,
pulling at hangnails.

What happens when 
the threads of skin
don’t stop at my hands?

Could the doctor diagnose that you were made of wood? 
soaked in salt, sopping wet, and crawling up the shore
or that you scraped your way back down through the sand, 
slow, to lay adrift on the words you couldn’t muster.

Does the creature nestled in a rabbit hole 
remember its last thought before death?
do the dreams live beneath the hide,
dreams and death and

Would she hear the shallow breaths, 
the ones that were almost silent,
when the world had whispered you in?

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About the author:

Fiona Rose is a writer, musician, and artist residing in Portland, Oregon. A poet and editor, her work has been featured in Poets Choice, The Closed Eye Open, and Cathexis Northwest Press, and served as an Editor for The Pointed Circle.