I remember the first time that you reached through the sea
To grab me by the wrists
I was like sulfur  in your lungs
But your coughing always sounded more like laughter
That was a long time ago, and now
My spine is broken across the coast
My parts are spread along the shore

I will surely drown with the incoming tide
(so mine will be a watery grave)
And yet this is not my Motherland
I was born
In an estuary, brackish and confused
I was born
In the empty acid of your stomach
Fated to be nothing but a hunger pain

It is here that I will die
With the water already around my knees
I think that they will like it that way
It will remind them of something literary
And tragic

My life is being expended one word at a time
And there is not a page left in the dictionary

I hope that you kept all of those letters, and
I hope that you caught enough of my love
Pooled between your fingers
Because now
My eyes are set on the horizon
And I was never a swimmer