‘Three Poems’, Third Place in Poetry

    Three Poems 

    by Annie Cao 

     

    Cordelia 

    The first time I drowned, I was a child — 

     my head a wreath of daylilies swallowing the saltwater,

                  as if it were a richness to be glorified. 

    Within my throat, the cherub of an appetite

                  splinters into existence. 

    I start running; the water unsheathes its tongue

                  & cries out. 

      

    (Cordelia, you know I only love you for

    the gossamer of your hair, 

                  the softness your lungs make 

                  when the brine fragments flesh. 

     

    Don’t you remember how it felt to be untouchable, 

    seawater puckering the slivers in your palms &

    bubbles cradling your face like a vessel, 

                  prettier than forgotten lethargies?) 

      

    Three years ago I wore a coral garland & mercury 

    rings on my fingers, listened to the sound of the

    undercurrent flinching            blithe & 

    unashamed

                  as I offered the tendons in my wrists. 

     I savored the heat off the sand & pretended it was

    something unseen, the gulping of angelfish stealing

    the storm from me, 

                  the same sweetness the colorless foam breathes

                  when my bones thaw & disperse. 

     

    (Here lays a motherland for your obsessions, 

                  the things you bleed over & worship unrevealed. 

     Cordelia, the voice of the coastline has

    plagued you since the day you were

    born; 

                  tell me you haven’t dreamt away your slumber

    with oyster pearls & abyssal naiads, tell me 

    you’ll weep quietly when the tides butcher you

                  like a creature of their own.) 

      

    I unfold:

                  the greatest thing I’ve ever done

    was scrub the salt from my jaws 

    & ask that it remain a magnetism

                  to be pacified.

     

    This time, the ocean closes me into a quiet emptiness.

    I let myself drift to the sea floor, 

                  scales & skin surrounding me in a milky veil,

                  my hands a present uncovered.

     

     

    Prelude  

    Every version of prelude in resonance:  

    When I was a child, the infection unfurled 

     

    rampant, scarlet-bodied. Milked gardenia,

    gouged alabaster, turgid hands combing

     

    the swimming pool floor. From gossamer to

    skin, compulsion worn soft pearl, my skull 

     

    bridled in concrete — the lessons all forgotten.

    I never spoke of bloodless mornings 

     

    or copper-mouthed boys. I let tomorrow

    hemorrhage itself to relic, electrifying in every iteration, 

     

    my mother’s tears silvering the backs of my hands. 

    In the epilogue, I’ll resurface prophetic: 

     

    blind and sunswept, molten to crimson, 

    the membrane of every undressed obsession 

     

    swaying corpse-like from my jaws.

     

     

    The Saltwater Theory

     

    Languid, the remnants 

    of paroxysmal obsession. 

     

    Here is what I remember: rusted

    palms shoved through rivulets of 

     

    sand, the color pink — fingertips,

    tender and weepy against foam, 

     

    knees scrubbed unripe. Saltwater,

    the cruel sting of it. I drift further 

     

    into pomegranate currents, Neptune’s

    mouth settling plaintively over my

    hair. 

     

    Something rising. Fluttering, feverish

    murmur. Saltwater, the cruel sting of 

     

    it. A single crack is all it takes, the

    carnivore sinking to its knees before me. 

     

    Petrified — I am fertile with so much

    ruination, my mind swaying against 

     

    every iteration of hysteria that mortality

    has driven through this flesh.

    Something 

     

    rising. I have already walked too far into 

    the hurricane. I am girl turned acolyte 

     

    before terror. I surrender, too late: this

    will be my worst undoing. I am scared. 

     

    I am begging now. Saltwater, the cruel

    sting of it. I resurface, sobbing, my face 

     

    scathing and slicked.