sun salutations in the Sargasso
by Yesha Townsend

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​your love backbends into the ocean
inhales salt & sargassum
sea breams & shark oil
 
your love commandeers the nautilus
curves spine against the mollusk shell
makes vertebra a fabled parabola
 
your love’s chi is a stubborn current
she is a stubborn current
she tumbles into downward dog like tank rain
 
your love’s hair is a curious storm
it fumbles in chaos - circles her collarbones
like an outer-worldly eddy
 
your love exhales to plank
her chatarunga is a museum
her axial skeleton is a shipwreck
 
she is always stirring new treasure
your love’s ribcage is a swollen nest
she is an ancient bewitching
 
she cures her lungs every two weeks
it’s the only way she can breathe underwater
your love got her warrior pose from 8th grade recess
 
her chest is a diamondback terrapin shell
no one can double-dutch her to a coil
your love makes mountain pose of limestone
 
her sternum is a burning kiln
she is always rebuilding her bones
your love does salsa with the gulf stream
 
wraps her legs round the gyre
& sighs into its swirling breast
your love is an urban myth
 
a rumor has it - a twisted tongue
in a brackish bedrock bedlam
your love forward folds to lift
 
to backbend to stargaze
her obliques are constellations
she exhales the sun