I

I Had a Hard Time Identifying Myself Drowned

by Lois Marie Harrod

The body changes so
when the river sucks it in.

I thought I was Orpheus’s head
floating down the Hebrus

still singing,
but I was not singing—

my sweet wrist pale and swollen
and the hand that held the pen

gone.  For a tongue,
a mouth of tiny fishes.

I counted them
one by one.

Photo by Amy Humphries on Unsplash

Lois Marie Harrod

U.S. poet Lois Marie Harrod’s Spat was published in June 2021. Her 17th collection Woman won the 2020 Blue Lyra Prize. Nightmares of the Minor Poet appeared in June 2016 (Five Oaks); her chapbook And She Took the Heart, in January 2016; Fragments from the Biography of Nemeis and How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth (Dancing Girl Press) appeared in 2013. A Dodge poet and lifelong teacher, she has been published in literary journals and online ezines from American Poetry Review to Zone 3 including Sequestrum. Online link: www.loismarieharrod.org