my husband was afraid of the crash 
which pushed so many underwater
I was afraid we were too 
in love too heavy with honey to extend
a hand
or flee

ao fugir
meu marido tinha medo da queda 
e muito acima dos rodapés nossas mãos
se apoiando, empurrava tantos outros debaixo d’água
um amor pesado com mel demais para oferecer
meu medo de que a gente também

at night I think if we might have to be two
out of three, they must be the ones to run
go without giving
a look back I’m not a good martyr but in Fall 
I’m useless the least likely to help as the water
rises conducting a fake melody with my cold wrinkled hands

então lavo as mãos
paro para olhar para as duas
abertas boiando na superfície da água
canoas falhas fugindo
devagar a corrente de ainda longe da queda
o raio do círculo centrado em mim estendendo

the faint ripple around my body in water spreading 
invisible beyond the immediate radius around my hands
meus pés melados stuck to the ground in the crash 
free themselves as the honey dissolves too
tentativa tardia de correr
sem precurssão dampened silent underwater

I drip the memory of milk in the water
watch the white beads swirl out extending
fainter towards the walls and around the goods for the flea
market floating dead just beyond the reach of my hands
stuffed bird old button up shirt vintage chair two
soggy boots and a speaker bursting
 
with water I wash my hands
keep on washing asking if we were to be none instead of two
I should have begged them not to flee stay with me for the crash

Ananda Lima’s work has appeared or is upcoming in The American Poetry Review, The Academy of American Poets’ Poets.org, The Kenyon Review Online, Colorado Review, The Acentos Review, Rattle, The Common and elsewhere. Her chapbook Translation (Paper Nautilus, 2019) won the 2018 Vella Chapbook Contest. She served as the poetry judge for the 2019 AWP Kurt Brown Prize. She has an MA in Linguistics (UCLA) and an MFA in Fiction (Rutgers-Newark) and has taught at UCLA, Montclair State University and Rutgers University. She was a mentor in the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Immigrant Artist Program – Newark and the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program.

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