Ish Klein
Holiday In March
I cannot breathe easy in water
that is the point not that some people
can. I cannot afford equipment
for constant breathing. That’s the point
not that there’s equipment for people
to breathe underwater. These long days
A belly rises and falls. It’s slow.
Shouting at unpredictable times.
Or bubbles. Soon a scheduled release.
I see light on top of this water.
It is not the sky. There’s a small flag.
Round little bugs we crunch on for air.
Soon it is Sir Igor’s day. Water
dyed blue traditionally for it.
Red plastic cup day. Beer everywhere.
White noise. Suggestable citizens
staggering along the avenues
drop plastic cups in our medium
this city river. Every odd year
the ramp of plastic refuse expands
Soon we will walk out of our ink blue
water into their drunk tank step one.
We will keep going. Igor be damned.
There is a clean field we can make it.
Amen to this nearby happy day.
that is the point not that some people
can. I cannot afford equipment
for constant breathing. That’s the point
not that there’s equipment for people
to breathe underwater. These long days
A belly rises and falls. It’s slow.
Shouting at unpredictable times.
Or bubbles. Soon a scheduled release.
I see light on top of this water.
It is not the sky. There’s a small flag.
Round little bugs we crunch on for air.
Soon it is Sir Igor’s day. Water
dyed blue traditionally for it.
Red plastic cup day. Beer everywhere.
White noise. Suggestable citizens
staggering along the avenues
drop plastic cups in our medium
this city river. Every odd year
the ramp of plastic refuse expands
Soon we will walk out of our ink blue
water into their drunk tank step one.
We will keep going. Igor be damned.
There is a clean field we can make it.
Amen to this nearby happy day.
Ish Klein's latest book of poems is called The New Sun Time. Her poems and plays have appeared or are forthcoming in the journals What Happens, Oversound, Gare du Nord, Versal, the Bennington Review and The Cambridge Literary Review.She is a founding member of CRVPT (Connecticut River Valley Poets Theatre) and hosts the weekly podcast Wrestling with Poetry.