Girls are coming out of the water
(winner of 2021 Anne Halley Poetry Prize) Published in Massachusetts Review (Winter 2020)
A child walks the familiar road.
A body is found at the mile mark.
Still
they do not suspect foul play.
Still
they say she was Not Afraid.
Say we are not afraid
Say we are not afraid
Say I am not afraid
and because we understand the need
to maintain appearances
and because we understand the in/
significance of our own threat/
of disappearing
Say I am Not Afraid.
Wear only red /each day
another goes missing
Wear red and
still
they will think of what to do with you
what they’d like to do
with us in our red dress.
Very well, be red like a plague
like a body/
of red water rising/
a name held in red rising
in the throats before
channels close.
Be red like the mouth
spitting fire in the Pacific.
Be the one made mother
in the beginning.
Be the one made to break
to scatter light to every window-
less interior.
Be fire
born of the sea.
Be fire
lit with each strike.
