"Jakarta Flood" by Emile Satyawarman.
© Please do not reproduce without artist's permission.
FLOOD
by Ali Sohail
The levee marks
The yellow line I
Stand behind
The seasonal drift
The maelstrom clench
I leap, I swim
Athwart the tide
As palms hit hushed
Notes and I claw, tear
Through spume and
Seine, puncture the
Tension, liquefied and
Grasping for breath
Against the lee of
The bank, vertebral
Shiver, knocked up
Against a frisson
It is electric I am
Charged I feel
Atomically immortal
Driven sole first
By this perennial freshet
While breaths come
Quicker come shallow
And stop
I break under and dimple
Sun flow with bubbles and
My hands are wings
And the current is wind
And I’m a child again
Originally from Alberta, Canada, Ali Sohail is currently a biology student at the University of Toronto, and an aspiring poet. He loves to travel, binge-watch Seinfeld, and play cricket. This is his first publication.
