Breathing Room

First published in swim meet lit mag, Issue 6: SLIP, Sep 2025

We could live in the body 
of a baby shark. I could shrink us to slip 

like fingers between gills that drowned 
on a breeze at low tide.

We could glimpse the sky from off milk
whites of once-seeing eyes.

Mum, we could live happily
in the rotting belly of a beached pup.

A dog’s nose could nuzzle
into our walls and we’d trust our home 

would be safe as a secret 
taken to the grave. I hear dead things

make good homes, where landlords 
can’t reach to sell, renovate, or up the rent.

But I wouldn’t know how to disguise 
the smell. With any luck, 

it’ll fade into wallpaper
and we’ll ignore the living room floor

—patient as a dormant volcano.
Mum, we could live like hermit crabs

squatting in bottle caps, making a home
out of the thing that’s killing us.