Every variation features the last two people alive,poolside. In a kitchen pouring milk for a dogwith one eye. So much eros, memento mori, etc.in the small glass always brought to the womanby the man who thinks of her,only sometimes. A little, he might claim.Everyone is always coming out of some bodyof water, languid, and dangerous, and dumb,as water. The sea is always standing infor what cannot be done on earth.
Alisha Dietzman is a PhD candidate in Divinity at the University of St Andrews, supported by a grant from the US-UK Fulbright Commission. She was awarded a 2020 U.K. Women Poets’ Prize by the Rebecca Swift Foundation. Her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from Ploughshares, Denver Quarterly, and The Iowa Review.…
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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, January/February 2025