sink or swim by Misha Lazzara
in the glass shower door
my reflection scared me
lying in bed with Sylvie
gray light filtered through
white curtains she pointed
to the shadow
the far corner
the monster, she said
in that way babies talk
everything droll and
unusually whimsical
I nodded, serious
yes, the monster
I never pointed to her
tiny chest, hummingbird heart
and never to my own
though I wanted to
just another lesson
you can’t teach
daughter, you don’t know yet
villains do prowl
under cloverleafs, in dormitories
but you will
surely learn it
still, I breathed in then
like a drowned girl
who finally admitted
she had jumped in
on a lark
because the beryl waves
amused her
the undertow a prize
yes, you will
sometimes be the origin
of your own misery
someday (if you are lucky)
that day you will learn
the monster is just as often
living within
learn to sink or swim
Misha Lazzara is an MFA Candidate at North Carolina State University. Her work has appeared on poets.org, frak/ture journal, Entropy Mag and is forthcoming in more. Winner of the Academy of American Poets University Prize 2020 at NCSU. mishalazzara.com