Kathryn Petruccelli

SELF-PORTRAIT WITH ECSTATIC APOCALYPSE
with a line by Ellen Bass

In water, my body remembers—
a boat cutting its way

through blue-green sea, dolphins riding
the wake, breath short,

joy caught in the drawer of my throat.
Ocean: ultimatum.

Ocean: mirror.
At a beach, where from both sides

children shriek, dive into salted waves while I remain
without voice for the moment at hand.

It's easy to discount how light shudders
before crests show themselves.

In the bathtub—even here, a rush from the source,
god we've been waiting for, waters rising

like good bread, like a world thirsty
for its origins, something displaced,

limbs pushing against soft force,
I blink and find darkness of beginnings.

You, forever slipping through my fingers—ocean:
body greater than ours.

Ocean: twisting away, jilted lover.
Longing as inevitable end—

swallowed by rhythmic lapping, rooting
among bottom dwellers, eyes protrude

from sediment, see our past-future loop
made whole, rocked by embryonic symphony.

I don't blame you for the gills we gave up,
I only want to put out this fire.