A Girl Doesn't Drown
Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad After Magnus Wennman’s photo series titled, “Where the Children Sleep” At first glance a fairytale page girl pink a princess resting soundly in the forest wrist bent little ear obscures braided hair blurred bubbles between bedpost trunks behind shut eyes like all stories dreaming At second glance dreaming toy train doll intact plastic ball striped in backyard bottles half filled with ocean water surround her here the grass mangled by her weight grows unevenly critters hidden nearby do not wait for her to rise will not sing to her the fluent silence the forest speaks cannot replace the memory language of explosion but she sleeps because she has not drowned crossing sea in rubber boat she was named after liquid gold now in Horgoš near closed border child who is Baghdad born let me narrate this fable pen this page with a new caption when you wake may the sun be foremost a force so plush it covers your young ankles warms them in a way that this blanket cold and dragged in mud was not meant to do and second a reminder that a huntsman cannot extract from a body every circular thing |
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About the Author: Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad is the daughter of Irooni immigrants, a worshiper of space and hyacinths, and an Oscar the Grouch apologist. Her poetry has appeared in Asian American Writers’ Workshop, The Missing Slate, and is forthcoming in Tinderbox Poetry Journal. She is the poetry editor for Noble / Gas Qtrly, and is a Best of the Net, Pushchart Prize, and Best New Poets nominee. She lives in New York where she practices matrimonial law.