Submerged | Hiba Tahir

Madelyn never believed / in luck, or loss, or the lingering / of love after a split / It was so quick, she said, knuckles white / around the wheel of her ’91 Mazda / But I don’t want to dwell on it. She placed / a frigid hand on my arm. You should / let me go. / I thought about how sea monkeys breathe through their feet / how our dead sea monkey children / likely choked on the same air that stifled us / can feet choke? / my feet choked / in sparkling flats / her birthday party last year / how the lights / the possibility in my veins / made the room pulse / like it was underwater / and she was smiling / as she interlocked her fingers / with my own / and we were bouncing on bloody toes / and our throats were hoarse / and our smiles were wide / and / and / and / of course she’s dead / has been dead since before / the last of the sea monkeys passed / and that perfect night did turn / found me sick in the parking lot / a bloody-footed mess 

Hiba Tahir is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Arkansas, where she received the Carolyn Walton Cole Endowment Fund in Creative Writing and the J. Chester and Freda S. Johnson Graduate Fellowship. She serves as social media editor of The Arkansas International and social media director of Open Mouth Literary Center. Her work is forthcoming in New South Journal.