1. Fold the Map. Now Fold It Again.
Why does a body create sound waves but not light waves?
What does body of water sound like underwater? (try it)
What is the sound of an eye as it reads a body?
Is the water memorizing me as I swim?
Is the memory of a storm[1] encoded in the body?
How far down can a memory swim? How long can it hold its breath?
2. Side. Door.
The rain
is
sideways.
Maybe we’ll
finally
understand
one another.
3. Open the Map. Now Open It More.
You & I were two ships
passing in the night
until lightning
seared & sank us.
How exquisite, to crash into each other.
How our pieces fit as we fell.
Now, here we are—near & far—
a locket & its secret locked inside.
[1] Every storm is a story, nonlinear, yet it does what a beginning/middle/end should do, which is breathe. The spin of the wind, raindrops like tiny clocks, hypnosis of stolen time. A shower is a rainstorm on command, you said. I like the way you think, I replied. The pan out, zoom in: you and me on the blinding white of the hotel bed. You untangling my gold chains. Are we doing this? you asked. Yes, I said. There are so many ways I want you and they are all impossible. I want to be the rain that kisses you a hundred times at once. I want you to be the storm that drowns me.
Margot Douaihy, PhD, is the author of Girls Like You and Scranton Lace (Clemson University Press). Her work has been featured in PBS NewsHour, North American Review, Colorado Review, Wisconsin Review, and Tahoma Literary Review, among others. She is the editor of Northern New England Review.