On the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford

is the trench depth, is the folding in
and under, under and in, is the further
hidden doubling of memory: was it the bleach
or the brine that stung as I ragged myself clean—
yes, I remember, the salt in the wound,
the scorning sigh of the sea pushing that spineless
creature from her depths, dragging its belly
over my soft dirt, it’s gargled dirge
of progress. A slick spill still spilling:
the curve of meniscus coiling like a seahorse
tail, the curl that named the hippocampus,
a creature more myth than morphology.
Memory is no solid monument but liquid’s
twins of substance and ceaseless swell.
I know what he carries in his belly and smears
on my thigh. Not the saltwater. Not the slippery
eggs bursting in male birth. Nothing other
than the pale fire of mine, mine, mine—
saline whisper dragging blood
into my lungs, bullying out any untainted
breath. The blood I suck when biting
down—the salt of metal and sting
of ooze I am drowning in.