Shape to Shore by Nicolette Wong

–For Brian Home sweet home is the water we sink into in the music of your dream. The strings will not give & my lungs are wheezing, from embraces I fail to make towards you in green. Your eyes are crazed, of a water ghost murdered in his past life by a recalcitrant lover. We used to draw bubbles at drowsy hours. Mine was a string of insanity crawling down the dotted lines, until you snatched it from my hands & held it to the light. ‘Oh baby,’ you said. ‘Go get some sun.’ Your bubbles were light, foaming at the corners & other surprising spots on the scrap of paper. Like love. Since we parted you have been to home & hell & back. Crashed your bike against the fences to dive into the lake for a mock suicide. Boarded the plane to a foreign land to suffocate from polluted air among strangers. Hopped on an overnight train to cross the border, passport & a dead heart at the control point. Now you reach out to me in a muddy green. ‘Our homes lie in people,’ you say. ‘Don’t fool yourself.’ I have no choice but to close my eyes & forget about shore. It is the only way I would reach it.

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