Laura Manuelidis
You are rowing in your galleys
Faceless between arms parallel:
Rowing against imprisonment.
Chained together with me.
I don’t know if night or day
……….or any fracture of the mind will relieve
……….the tormenting sameness of this sky
and its heft of equanimity.
Furious sirens drown our oars.
The moon lifts opposing wave lips
Silhouetted by wind
Where we can’t reach.
The music of your shoulders is
Fiercer than the oppression
Of your conquerors. Or the whips
Without syncopation On mine.
Rags barely cover the secrets in your hearts.
Denigration can’t obliterate your passion for survival
……as the tendon and the gong of death
Pull muscles further than their stretch.
You reach into the fish, like me
…….with eyes that gather light from their oblivion.
The depth of water extends down
Beyond reef ruins and the bottom
To touch/ the scales/ that slip/
………The oar: a stroke kept to its beat
Domineering, and called out:
The flash of time that takes us all
Torturing the most exhausted ‘till they drop
This body slave that has no choice
Remains, like me to you, my owner: a tool
………….that can’t be heard.
Or for water stop.
–
Laura Manuelidis is a physician and scientist who has delved into the shape of chromosomes as well as the causes of dementia. She has begun to publish some of her poems, written over many years, in various journals including The Nation and The Connecticut Review, was nominated for a Pushcart prize, and has read in European and American university and other venues. Her poetry book Out of Order is available online from popular book sites, and samples of her written poetry and spoken poetry, in addition to other published work, can be accessed here.
