The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Another Way to Split Water by Alycia Pirmohamed

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Midnight Vessel Across the Great Sea

                              What kind of river, then, has no middle?
                              —Édouard Glissant

Another bloom after the first bloom      inheritance is a form
of second      sight in the past someone with my birthmarks
predicted the next moon      the upheaval      my own ebb.
My body is the echo of her iambs      a tradition that sieves
right through      my ancestor’s thread.      I am slick with
rosewater and cat’s eye      —I can’t choose between
survival or pleasure.      In the past      someone who looked
like me fell      into the valley of roses      five times a day.
This echo is      another velvet petal      submerged in the drool
of my mouth      I am submerged      in the drool of her mouth.
My second sight is an heirloom      a volume of sonnets
passed down      a line of flight      as if she is more image
than intent      more midnight than syllable      the eye before
the eye      the root beneath my poem.      I am a remembrance
and she is my volta—      an echo blooms      this echo is her hair
parting into my hair      she is the fine dark strand      across
my memory      she glides like a reed      a silhouette of green
across the great sea      her poetry strikes through      my window
like a stone      breaking the skin      memory of water.

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