Drowning

I know about drowning.

Not the emotional lyrical death

some poets glorify,

but of acrid salt water

like memories, and cold

as marble coffins,

where the dead are put to rest.

Water flowing into the mouth and throat

fills every crack, freezes 

and splits, swells and bursts your skin. 

you, born without gills

in crystalline water, gentler 

and more powerful, clearer and darker.

This is where you came from

We will drown, one way or the other,

return to the dark womb, the gentle

heartbeat of the deep

without a voice to call us back

without a hand holding us back

from unborn dreams.