I sat in a hot tub late one wedding
And weathered falling branches
Like a thing that could transcend me
But that I could still carry
If I had to go. The tub was
Like an endless conversation about authenticity
No more than two feet deep.
And you thought you were diving.
But if you’d really dived you’d have hit your head
And I saw no injury.
So you didn’t dive—I saw no injury
But I hit my head
On what I said
And if that’s depth
Then call me dead.
And weathered falling branches
Like a thing that could transcend me
But that I could still carry
If I had to go. The tub was
Like an endless conversation about authenticity
No more than two feet deep.
And you thought you were diving.
But if you’d really dived you’d have hit your head
And I saw no injury.
So you didn’t dive—I saw no injury
But I hit my head
On what I said
And if that’s depth
Then call me dead.
Jessica Laser’s work has appeared in journals such as Boston Review, The Iowa Review, jubilat, Lana Turner and in two chapbooks, Assumed Knowledge and the Knowledge Assumed from Experience (The Catenary Press, 2015) and He That Feareth Every Grass Must Not Piss in a Meadow (paradigm press, 2016). A Brooklyn resident, she teaches writing at Parsons and poetry at SUNY Purchase.
English