Poetry

Texas Fish

by Lajward Zahra

Wretched past refuses me, will not
swallow the pain from the present.
Suctions, the way you did.
Saliva on my ant bites adding to the itch
like the lick of water pushing against
us, upstreaming salmon into slick jaws.
Premonitions of border brown and
gaping maws 100 miles into the desert
You, with your American agility,
and I, your dead-weight, floated
in from some sea.
The sea, yes.

Our faces hours from seeing it.
Your eyes cutting through the
windshield and coughing lamps.
I would supply our kids with those
ichthyic eyes, that invincible agility
They’d be able to follow that blue
line on your phone, the interstate,
to the bowl holding the blue Miami
when the Rio Grande River
pulled me into its soft, wet mud.
My only record a fossil record, only
an itch in the belly of the bear.

Appeared in Issue Fall '24