I Could Melt

I Could Melt

written by: Kathryn MacDonald

I could melt into sand drift
into Mombasa’s Sea. I imagine
you walking beside me
our feet splashing
through incoming tide –
turquoise and cerulean.
Listen. A voice from over
the waves singing, singing.

In Mombasa I find a lizard hiding under the fridge,
butterflies hatching and mating in a pavilion of netted walls,
find a wizened man tending them, offering ripe fruit,
the air potent with fecundity.

One variety he says
turns brilliant African bluu in August.

The month you died.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

“A voice from over / the waves singing, singing” alludes to the Orpheus myth.

Bluu is Swahili for blue.

This poem is from a collection of poems about flight, becoming lost, a pilgrimage (inspired/guided by Robecca Solnit’s philosophical contemplation, A Field Guide to Getting Lost).

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• About
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Kathryn MacDonald

Kathryn MacDonald has published in literary journals such as Humana Obscura and Amethyst Review in the U.S., Dust and The High Window in the U.K., FreeFall and Room in Canada, plus journals in Ireland, and India. Her poem “Duty / Deon” won the Arc Award of Awesomeness (January 2021. “Seduction” was entered in the Freefall Annual Poetry Contest and was published in Freefall (Fall 2020). She is the author of "Far Side of the Shadow Moon" (chapbook), "A Breeze You Whisper: Poems, and Calla & Édourd" (fiction).

Latest posts by Kathryn MacDonald (see all)

• I Could Melt - March 27, 2025
• Blue Without a Name - December 12, 2024