by Alexandra Barylski
Waters of her deep like god’s own womb—on shore she remains
in the momentary speech of sun. O body, what’s exposed,
brief fragment of life laid where seaweed sings brightly of loss.
Waters of the world gather in the bowl of her hips. Holy wind
within the spill of her spine poured cool and dark till she is awake
with wanting what began in abundance to stay abundantly begun
and bless her, astonishment to astonishment: the color of skin
in any light. There is the moment and the mark it leaves on the future
of flesh; there is the swimming and final succumbing to the call.
Alexandra Barylski is a senior editor at the Marginalia Review of Books and the author of the chapbook “Imprecise Perishing.” Poetry is forthcoming in Chariton Review, Windhover, Ninth Letter, Phoebe, and elsewhere. She won the 2015 Morton Marcus Poetry Prize and was a finalist in several major 2017 poetry competitions.