What if I told you that you’re a fishbone,
my backbone formed from ancient times,
that your slippery fin and tail are adored
more than any over-gazed rainbow or sunset,
that you wear fluttering seaweed best,
and I don’t even look at suited wo/men.
What if I told you that your love is water,
I don’t sip on it, I gulp it down with thirst,
that it flows into my soil, doesn’t stick or stale,
so easy even for someone who doesn’t like easy,
that I long for your gills to wrap me in soft bubbles
like a weightless coat, thicker than my own skin.
What if I told you all that, would you think
I’m a capricious water sign, quite smitten
with you in my own weird way, or that I’m
a lunatic, because I’m not, I’m a Virgo sun
and rising in fact, and you just taught me
how to float in your waters.
Christina Hennemann (she/her) is a poet and prose writer based in Ireland. Her poetry pamphlet “Illuminations at Nightfall” was published by Sunday Mornings at the River in 2022. She’s the winner of the Luain Press Prize 2022, was shortlisted in the Anthology Poetry Award & Dark Winter Contest, and longlisted in the National Poetry Competition. Her work appears in Poetry Wales, Skylight 47, The Moth, York Literary Review, fifth wheel, Ink Sweat & Tears, Moria, National Poetry Month Canada, and elsewhere.
Find her online: www.christinahennemann.com and on Twitter: @chr_writer