The Water Bearer
I imagined your death our whole lives.
The loss an uninhabitable heat,
overtaking me, bereft and wild.
But instead I found glacial ice.
A cold, not chilling, somehow warm, but so silent
it came seductively, calling me to the bottom of the ocean.
For a few spellbound moments we were living
so far down that the magic of our love
erased the need for breath.
Oh Siren Song
one swell of my heart, I imagined crawling
over the railing of the ship to be taken down
to be taken back
to our blue flannel sheets
that I once turned to water, where we swam
for hours as if there was no other world but ours.
Who knew your death
would leave me with a kind of salty double vision
viewing this life we do not have and what lies beyond it.
Oh Water Bearer
how you joked I was yours to carry.
Only later did you confess
that when you imagined dying
you were not afraid. When you imagined dying
it was in my arms at peace.
This is how you reminded me
the shore was waiting. I could not
keep you safe.
Like a net
we were caught in death
from that first kiss in the cemetery.
Sometimes untangling
as we entwined until some stray limb
was caught, pulling us down from the light.
I took you deep into my body
as if my bones could keep
you here.
Ever since you left
I am hallowed, still here
like a buoy in the endless night.
Angela M. Brommel is a Nevada writer with Iowa roots. In 2018, her chapbook, Plutonium & Platinum Blonde, was published by Serving House Books. Her poetry has been published in The Best American Poetry blog, The North American Review, The Literary Review’s (TLR) Share, and many other journals and anthologies. A 2018 Red Rock Canyon Artist in Residence, Angela served as the inaugural poet of the program. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and an MA in Theatre from the University of Northern Iowa. Mojave in July is (Tolson Books, 2019) her debut full-length poetry collection. Angela is the Executive Director of the Office of Arts & Culture as well as affiliate faculty in Humanities at Nevada State College. You can also find her at The Citron Review as Editor-in-Chief.
