Family Gathering

Breathe waves of dusk—
you’re a fish now.
Ignore the tails thumping
on the floor, the silver thrashes
keeping time. Dying now,
a thimbleful of haddock
under the moon.
Dare you cross the Devil’s Punchbowl?
Flying fish glimmer in prisms
upon the windowsill. Rubies churn
in the water—blood
reveals itself. Sharks circle,
vexing us. Hex or helix,
it’s all the same brew—
slates only come
smudged.

***

Emergent Phenomena

What chance do linen & laundry have against the formless?
I reach for a shape, a shield, the steamed lid of a pan.
There are masks for this
& a billion pubs.
We tell stories to the glass, forming daylight faces.
Night slips from nutmeg eyes. Egg timers
shatter, scattering ash & shark teeth.
I’m a jigsaw mess & memory the glue—set
yet unsettled.
Hissing from an abyssal corner, the alligator
cajoles a fawn at the flood’s edge, jawing.
Foolish fires hover over cattails. Grandma unearths blue agates,
now marbles in the mouth. Some glide without perceivable friction
over facets & surfaces.
Why must I have lead in my bones?
I scoop oceans out of my head, rattling with magnetic force
in my electric machine. We well forth from
what? A tunnel in the ocean floor—
I turn my boot upside down, looking for Medusa’s locks. Arms protrude
from the wreckage. Mirrors eat people
I’ve seen it happen.

***

Amee Nassrene Broumand is an Iranian-American poet from the Pacific Northwest. Nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, her work has appeared in FIVE: 2:ONE, Sundog Lit, The Ginger Collect, Empty Mirror, Menacing Hedge, Barren Magazine, & elsewhere. She served as the March 2018 Guest Editor for Burning House Press. Find her on Twitter @AmeeBroumand.