treading water

Adebe DeRango-Adem

every treasure chest breathes heavy,
every black pearl understands
the uncomfortable whole

every treasure chest breathes heavy,
every black pearl understands
the uncomfortable whole

just as every siren knows
to turn her sadness into song,
develop a taste for archeology

instinctively come up for air
to surface to herself,
watch the lobe of the moon disrobe

consider drowning the night’s
last reckless sailors
with the stark anthropology of her fins

she finds it amusing
that her tears never get seen,
and so taught herself to cope

by hoping deep and long,
fathoming song,
choosing what’s buoyant,
learning so long

 

Adebe DeRango-Adem is a writer and expat doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of two poetry collections, Ex Nihilo (Frontenac House, 2010) and Terra Incognita (Inanna Publications, 2015). Her most recent, Terra Incognita, explores various racial discourses and interracial crossings buried in history’s grand narratives.

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Cover image for Room Magazine Issue 49.2, Science. Art by Candace Cosentino of an old-fashioned computer monitor with a bounty of dandelions growing from it.

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In Room Magazine 49.1 No Future for Who?, we are really asking. We are coming in hot. We are causing a scene. We are being unreasonable. We are not fucking around. We are not taking “no” for an answer. “No” is the only word we still know. For who? For who? No.

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