“Underwater”

by Georgia Tiffany

I was playing Brahms when I died,
performing underwater,
the keyboard floating,
my hands disembodied and floating
the way a dream can slowly float

in and out of itself,
and then my mother drifted toward me
her claim of body –
but there was not body,
only the muscles of water.

She was graceful as seaweed,
fish moving through her,
and I thought how lovely their eyes
that depend
on sound, or the lack of it.

I wanted to tell her I could feel
the fish move as I moved,
carrying their bodies like messages
among ribs of old ships,
winding their way along floating streets,

past floating windows, floating doorways,
toward those misty blue flames
that illuminate.
I wanted to tell her dark is the eye
that does not close.

I was playing Brahms, my hands
discovering huge chords
they had never reached before,
and there was my body
stunned with his sudden mind.