Julia Fiedorczuk

The sun gives birth to me almost without pain,

a dressing of warmth on my foot, on my eyelids

a light compress of blood, unearthly goggles.

On them crouches a spectrum like a rapid

giddy anemone that tells me

colorful ichthyological stories. Red

and black is how everything starts,

then later the Great Inundation

of Ultramarine, my amphibious vehicle.

How was it? I strive to remember,

rubbing my eyes. Those subcutaneous

times drift nearer, they are mine

for a light-flash, a brief apnea

and an exquisite fear, that instantly dissolves

in the foaming depths. To possess you,

world. To love you, lose you.

But what's needed is to emerge on land, grow feathers,

look straight at the sun.

Tie sealike green of the iris.

Flesh, cloth, breath.