Brackish

a singing in the water

Photo by James Demers

I remember singing

to you once in

brackish water, or

what I mistook

for sleep. It had

something to do

with low tide, how

it keeps secrets

badly. You unbraided

me the way

bull kelp loosens

from its holdfast-

slow, then all

at once.

I don’t know if

this was sleep

or the water

teaching me

to mouth your name

without a body.

The sand remembers

pressure. The drift

line holds what

the tide took

but didn’t finish.

You were singing

without a throat,

someone who lived

inside the fog bank,

inside the salt

mouth of the

estuary.

Brackish means

undecided. I was

undecided. The kelp

pulled like a question

I forgot to

answer once.

Loss is another

word for undertow.

You gathered this

when your hair

was wet. You

ghosted me the way

eelgrass ghosts

the current - still

clinging, still

swaying, still

tethered to something

beneath the silt.

You were tidal,

someone

waiting to surface.

Someone who sang

within and outside

of the body.

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