12/4
Sonnets From Other Lives: Alyss

Living underwater in this way
Alyss has come to an understanding
with the dark blue silence of her days
& the vertigo of falling without landing.
Everybody moves about in schools—
buses leaving ripples in their wake—
a curvature of light that always fools
her into thinking nearer things are far away.
She knows wiser amphibians than she
crawled out of the liquid long ago
& into airy light—eventually
learning keener ways to move & grow
but Alyss now has gotten used to this--
adjusted to her life in the abyss