Dasia Moore
Atlantic / Black / American, Triangular
The wake does its work on all of us
who wet our feet in the waters where we died.
This one the wake makes a mourner,
this one the mourner’s martyred child.
And I who have caught the raft of nation,
whom the waves washed onto empire’s shore—
what to make of floating on a bone-built island
and what if the bones are also yours.
I’m looking for a word to spit back at the coastline,
for a wrath that will carry us home.
Drinking water wherever I find it in hopes
of clouding my eyes, of leaving behind.
Even now, the point escapes. The poem
drowns itself in the sea. The raft dissembles,
disassembles, reveals no lighthouse and no raft
after all. A little water takes on water,
never enough for this thirst.
Albufeira, Atlantic
Generations have worn out their soles with this longing.
I climbed a hillside in Portugal, watched the shore for signs
of my grandmother returning. No destination final
for an ocean-born body. No final feeling of thirst. No matter
where I go, I write, there is always this ocean. I follow
on all sides and still searching for the wave that will carry
itself whole. On that hilltop, bare shoulders and skirt to my calves.
Bare feet cooling in a shallow, man-made pool. A map
in poet’s mind salting the kilometers, sea-stench
sticking itself to the years. I take a photo of myself
with wet feet, grew into a woman with a craving for salt.
Parched. Drowning. I drink what will dry me out.
Opened my mouth to my grandmother’s voice—
I fear my ears are not equipped to hear this song.
4:15 am
“Dark clouds may rise. Stormy winds may blow. But He’s sweet I know. He’s sweet I know.”
- Mahalia Jackson & Mama’s lullaby
Time wakes me : calls me to attention : asks for an account of my worries : and what moves me
bent towards un-being : my mother’s way of seeing : the unknowable way a life shapes itself : no
mirrors : in the dark
To take this wet world and dream it habitable : with what little my hands can make : are words as
good as wood : for building a thing that floats
No one can see the future : only the surface of a wide water : at certain angles : shadows : sodden footprints left in blackening ink by those who have jumped in : history cannot tell itself : what survives is a mislabeled song : a mourning map : a mother’s nighttime wish : a cleansing rain and a little boat
Narrative
It is never just theory. The Atlantic divided me in two. A spirit-me watched over me, let my
troubles linger in her water. Girlhood is a call. My cousins walked us to the park, the asphalt
sizzled, the sidewalk called to bodied parts of them I could not name. They didn’t answer.
What does free taste like to a hot lil thing? An iciness, a paper cup, a dyed-red, dyed-blue. That
summer like many summers, I tried to learn to swim. The fear of floating cut my breath in half. I
always gave in to the water.
As It Is Taken from You, I Renew You,
or a second sonnet 15
As you learned it by its
trees. As you learned it before
your name. Picture with me
palmetto. Say blush pink
magnolia. Own Charleston
as if you still own your father’s
home. And dressed in the brave
states of memory, say
Live Oak, say Holy City,
speak Mine to indigo
waters. Buy back what’s yours
blood-bought, shivering gold.
Hold on to the perfect but a moment.
Land is a loss we already know.
Dasia Moore is a Black queer writer and educator pursuing her M.F.A. in poetry at New York University, where she is a Lillian Vernon fellow. Dasia’s poetry and journalism have appeared in publications including The Offing, The Boston Globe Magazine, Autofocus, and Stanchion. Born and raised in the Carolinas, Dasia currently writes from New York.