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The Breaking

We have drowned a father,
sepsis and I. 
Deny someone water 
and the body will find 
disease to fill it with.

          ∴

It’s always the stomach, 
bulbous and huge. 
A cavern holding
what would take 
cupped hands days to fill. 

          ∴

The shifting pressure of palms.
Threadbare sheets. 
Metal guardrails. 
The way he cries to lick 
his chapped lips like a dog. 

          ∴

Either it is raining 
or it is not raining. 
His body rained. 
Mine did not. 
It is that simple. 

          ∴

Sepsis. 
Say it out loud. 
Now say it underwater. 
(It sounds the same).

          ∴

The body a condition of music. 

          ∴

Violent contortions 
constellate a father
into a symphonied darkness. 
Sweat pools like a shadowed
moon, or just another bruise.  

          ∴

(We are lost
and unable to keep
still).

          ∴

I wanted to hold his hand. 
Imagine such a prayer. 
The rejection of it all. 

          ∴

Silence green, like the bloom 
of mold. 

          ∴

Condemnation
in memory loss, 
ferocious sleep. 
Name, erased. 
Face, emptied. 
Like watching a bird 
dive below 
the water, anticipation 
in the breaking.
 
 
Note: The line Either it is raining or it is not raining is from David Markson’s Reader’s Block.

Sonya Lara

Sonya Lara is a biracial Mexican American writer. She received her BA in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MFA in Poetry from Virginia Tech. Her work appeared or is forthcoming in Frontier, Shenandoah, Ninth Letter, AGNI, The Los Angeles Review, The Acentos Review, and elsewhere. She is currently the Wisconsin’s Own Library Residence Fellow. For more information, please visit sonyalara.com.

About

Sonya Lara is a biracial Mexican American writer. She received her BA in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MFA in Poetry from Virginia Tech. Her work appeared or is forthcoming in Frontier, Shenandoah, Ninth Letter, AGNI, The Los Angeles Review, The Acentos Review, and elsewhere. She is currently the Wisconsin’s Own Library Residence Fellow. For more information, please visit sonyalara.com.