Ellen Kombiyil
I was inspired to write in the epistolary form after reading Richard Hugo's iconic "31 Letters and 13 Dreams." Although I was unable to keep his playful and familiar tone -- which I greatly admired -- this poem presented itself because it was the letter I couldn't write and had never written. The permission of the poem to use metaphor, to speak in the language of dreams, and not merely be a letter of fact, opened up the possibility of speaking the truth of the feeling body. I don't think this poem could exist in any other form.
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Letter to the Gods of the L&D Ward
Forgive me if I don't kowtow and thank you,
bending farther than my body would allow.
I'm sure you've saved someone legitimately before.
Don't send the lifeboats when I'm out for a swim,
not drowning. I carry the ocean inside,
know how to sing underwater. Tiny earthquakes
emanate from my epicenter. Once I dreamt
the night ocean: fin shapes, wave shapes, shifting
silhouettes. I was lifted off my toes,
swam past the breakers to the tip of an abyss
lighted from within. You know dreams have two meanings:
There was fear that I'd strayed too far from shore,
fear that I'd be dragged back before I could explore.
I was balanced on the lip of it when you,
gods of the L&D ward, with your weariness
and charts, hauled me back to the room with beige walls
where I'm not floating but swallowing water.
A blade appeared, sudden as birds' wings in your latex hands.
I called out No! but you reached between my legs
and cut me. A hidden cupboard opened to masks,
and tubes sprang from the miraculous walls.
It was the end of the world or the beginning
and I can't believe I ever feared dolphins.
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Ellen Kombiyil is a native of Syracuse, New York and a graduate of the University of Chicago. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Cider Press Review, Eclectica, MiPOesias, Sojourn and Spillway, among others. She is currently working on the manuscript for her first book. She lives in India with her husband and two children.