The Flood
Pregnant with my son, I dream of driving
the car folding itself like a paper swan
into the cold mouth of the Chesapeake.
A mother and child sleeping underwater,
the sound of exhaustion’s lullaby beneath the bridge.
This isn’t a dream but a life I knew.
My therapist blinks once.
She asks if it is a story at all.
My mouth opens to answer and a swan unfolds
its wings dragging a flood.
Its neck a question bending toward my life.
Breaking News: Woman Turns Into Machine After Her Therapist of 10 Years Dies of Covid
I’ve always thought of being a machine.
I’m on a planet dying (it makes sense)
better than this confusing telegram of flesh and bone,
better than the dreams saying: you are breakable.
I will learn to crackle solar, to cackle
and wander like a star & collapse into myself.
My body will be a punishment of the ugliest gray.
I’ll be as sexy as a battleship.
It’s perfect for this strange & hurting world.
Beneath my new aluminum ribs, I will split
like an old stone. Tell the meteors—come!
You may tap-tap through my head now.
I never had the chance to tell her:
I started playing the bagpipes at midnight.
Chrissy Stegman is a poet/writer/forest dork from Baltimore, Maryland. Recent work has appeared in: UCity Review, Rejection Letters, Gone Lawn, Gargoyle Magazine, Anti-Heroin Chic, Stone Circle Review, Fictive Dream, Inkfish, The Voidspace, 5 Minutes, Libre, and BULL. She is a 2x BoTN and Pushcart nominee. www.chrissystegman.com
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