Woman in Current

“You can hold her shape,
but you will never truly know
her femininity.”

I wanted to write about
the threshold of state transfer;

hand flashing keyboard,
fingers,
keys,
soft percussion,
language entering light,

until what was held inside
was no longer inside.

The moment I begin to write,
I can no longer hold
what was once division.

And the work;
it grows,
and I only hope
what had made it mine

stays mine.

She's a thought
made real,

black hair,
ink spread over wave.

Writing on walls.
Platforms.
Anywhere language survives me.

The tide
it rushes in.

It does not come to take the land
or become the shore.

It comes to find
its own reflection,

submerging the boundary
where earth ends
and wave begins.

In that collision,
neither disappears.

Shore remains shore.
Water remains water.

One carries the other.

You drift.
You glide.

Sea mist.
Retreating tide.

Dark hair
spooling
behind you,
a wheel
of suspended
shadow.

Weightless pendulum
inside the undertow,

back
forth

carrying the shape
of what touched you

only after
the water has gone.

— t r a b o c c o
Signal Literature

— t r a b o c c o
the things that stabilize