Jaime Zuckerman is a poet and educator living in the Boston area. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Ampersand, NAP, Fruita Pulp, Ghost Ocean, Paper Nautilus and elsewhere. Jaime is currently an MFA candidate at Emerson College.
SABINE EQUATION
It is true that our mirrors
are infinite lakes,
though we see little
of their distances.
This is how echoes work:
we call out and want to hear
our little sounds
bounce off solid rock.
Instead, we hear drowning,
helpless again.
We dive in to rescue ourselves,
trumpets in our guts.
When we lay wet and new and panting,
we still feel the water
slipped around us,
hand around bone,
an arm reaching up from the green.
Once we’ve forgotten,
it happens anew,
turn and trauma fresh.
It is true that we choose
one brand of loneliness
over another.