tuna

my love, there seems to be a tsunami coming

i feel the trench rumbling in my gills
our neighbors have already fled
eyes bulged, the last we’ll see of them…

but why don’t we sit back on our recliners?
you don’t want to miss the waves crashing in!

sure, the force will skin our scales right off,
our raw bodies will torpedo till we hit shore,
by that time, we will be nothing but
sad lumps of cartilage leftovers for a seagull;
our bones bleaching under the same sun
who would cast an iridescent shine on my fins
that never failed to make you ooh and ah…

but fear not, my love,
for these waves will sweep mankind
into their arms and
sweep his shiny cars
run by the fuel of our ancestors
sweep his mills
that blacken our home with slick
sweep his nets
that incarcerate and disembowel us en masse

now he will be a buoy across the deep blue
the taste of brine

Jessi Seohyun Kim is a Korean-American in her early 20’s based in Boston. She becomes a poet when she drinks chamomile tea and loves the theatre. She has publications in Clever Fox Literary Magazine and Homer Humanities.

bloating his tongue
x’s over eyes, belly up to the sun.

my love, as our spiny cadavers
imprint onto stubborn stone
remember the sounds of his screams;
though no one mourns over dead tuna
we will hear his cries for eons ahead
and when all is silent
except for
the tide lapping at all of our corpses
we will know that mankind has met his demise.

so, my love, let’s drink in the tsunami together