By Ceciley Pund
Without the fish-glister
beneath the laze
our dangled feet, we may
not know our unbelonging.
Mid-squeal
and splash
our pronouncement
that we can make
this splay of fingers
solid, meet the push
of water against
the persistent
float of our air-bellied
bodies
she sees through horizontal
blue, a silver, a tail-whip
a lone wriggle,
fanning its gills,
moving closer to the space
between our toes.
I look to my sister to decide
our creature
our congruity
but she has already grasped
rock, pushing up
reaching through air.
We have learned to look for signs
that we are anomalous:
a feather, a gill, a tongue
not like ours
but I was told
by the wing of my shoulder
the gill of my lung, the tongue
licking lemon ice
that my body
is one shape
I am several.
Ceciley Pund grew up a missionary kid between the American Midwest and Naples, Italy. Not having spent long in either country until her adulthood, her writing and poetry often ponders transience, belonging, and what it means to be foreign.
Instagram: @cecileyloveon
