Lisette Alonso
Water Signs
When our peninsula sank into the Atlantic, the children all turned themselves to saltwater fish. They could do it because they were young and malleable, they had their imaginations to guide them. By then we were too darkened by the world, by all the catastrophes we’d seen, the terrible things we’d watched people do to one another. Some of us did terrible things ourselves in the hope of giving our children just one more day of sunshine and breath. While we resigned ourselves to the end days, the children put all their energy into sprouting gills and learning how to navigate turns with dorsal fins. They did this while they slept, which is when all significant change is affected. As they evolved, they dreamt of out-swimming tiger sharks and barracuda. In their sleeping minds they saw the entire topography of the ocean floor, how all our beachside condominiums would topple into the sea, creating artificial reefs just for them. There wasn’t hope for us, their parents, the adults who’d mucked things up through action or inaction. Those of us lucky enough to own boats bought ourselves a little time as the tides rose, but the rest could only cling to buoyant furniture or the uprooted trunk of a passing tree. It was impossible to save everyone. We knew there would be no triumphant rescue, that the rest of us would slowly exhaust our supplies then bake to dust on the prows of our ships. We’d watch our children swim out to repopulate the deep sea knowing we would never cast another fishing line, that we couldn’t follow them into the tides. The best we could hope was to one day be given breath in the watery landscape of their dreams.
The Edge
We drew a line through the middle of the house like siblings did on old sitcoms, except we were married, and no audience would applaud our shenanigans. We decided the front door was mine and he could exit through the garage like a scoundrel. I owned the bedroom, but the kitchen was his. He denied me food and water, while I refused access to the shower and closet. That was the acrimony that blossomed. Nights he slept curled in the pantry beneath the jasmine rice and chocolate chips. If the dog wandered past the line, he promised to murder it with a rolling pin. The backyard was communal except one of us couldn’t be there unless the other left. This meant he’d chain smoke under the eaves just so I would miss the sunsets. The kids lived in the attic to stay out of the crossfire. Mornings, they’d shimmy out the window on a rope of knotted sheets. We didn’t worry they’d fracture a limb, we were too busy devising new ways to torture each other. Sometimes he’d cook a meal, then scatter it on the lawn just to see the flocks of grackles swoop in and shit on everything. I shredded all his mail, dragged a penknife across his vinyl records then played them with the volume turned up. He confirmed every terrible thing I believed about myself. I confessed to sleeping with his uncle. When he grew quiet, I thought it was a new weapon, but it turned out he’d died suddenly. It didn’t feel like a victory as much as another betrayal, my resentment tinged with the nostalgia of knowing our best fights were buried. I would never hate him more than I did at that moment. My rage could only ebb, the space beyond the line unconquered.
The Morning News
Someone has been attacked by a shark again, throngs of people are irate, then a celebrity does something illogical or totally mundane and the world is riveted. I wonder how anyone can buy a pair of shoes without a lapse in sanity. So many styles and sizes. Who knows the fair market value for a pair of ballet flats? Who decides these things? The weather report comes on and it feels excessive. We can all see outside, can’t we? The predictions are always completely wrong or exactly right. Future storms bloom like peonies on the high-tech radar. I think about going to the beach, but it seems such a walk to the front door. I can’t even look at my car keys without feeling tired. In the next segment, the newscaster promises to tell us about a cutting-edge diagnosis for children who play too many video games, but the explanation never comes. We could all be afflicted, so maybe everyone should take all the prescriptions just in case. I look at the clock, and it is past lunch time. I might be hungry or maybe I’ve already had enough nutrients to last the rest of my life. Maybe I could live off air if I just believe hard enough. For hours, I try to get dressed, to trade sleep clothes for walking-around clothes, but the sky clouds over and thunder echoes far away like the sky clearing its throat. I wait for a hard rain to come. I sit for too long, and the clock speeds up like someone moving the hands forward with an index finger. The next broadcast is about to start, and I need to know what is happening. Who of us is still alive? Who should I be angry with? I need to know what to do next.
Lisette Alonso is a south Florida native. She holds an MFA from the University of Miami and is the author of the chapbooks Wednesday’s Child (Porkbelly Press) and The Album of Untaken Photos (The Lune). Her poetry has appeared most recently with SWIMM, Ethel, Prime Number Magazine, and New Letters.