by Sarah Fawn Montgomery

I am no longer

a woman who can

breathe underwater,

tread rising tide,

trade my voice

for the chance

to walk on land

pretend to love

a man who doesn’t

understand the void

of a cold open sea

strongest abandoning

the surface to survive

further in fathoms

that would burst

a body from inside

vessels wrecked as ships

made myth simply

because they could not

persist and I do not

want pearls for eyes,

prefer to wade alone

towards death’s ferryman

without proper payment.

Sarah Fawn Montgomery is the author of Halfway from Home, Quite Mad: An American Pharma Memoir, and three poetry chapbooks. Nerve, a craft book on developing a disabled writing practice, is forthcoming with Sundress Publications, and Abbreviate, a short collection of flash nonfiction, is forthcoming with Harbor Editions.