Cold, predators threaten her dormant body. She hovers
in the Earth’s watery pocket. Fellow prey aggregate in shelves.
Vigilant, she regards light through the ice lid, sequesters waste
in shell and bone. She learns to breathe outside the lungs, slow. Gas
bubbles bloat her mouth and throat. By spring, a debt of oxygen to be paid.
A graduate of the Creative Writing program at Boston University, Deborah J. Bennett’s poems and translations have appeared in Salamander, Sugar House, Tupelo Press, Connotations Press Online, Portland Review and elsewhere. Her prose has appeared on Only a Game, Cognoscenti, Edify, among others. In addition, she recently attended Bread Loaf’s Translators’ Conference and the Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference. She teaches languages at Berklee College of Music where she is inspired by fellow artists.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0)
