July
by Seraphina Dawn
We went swimming on weekends. My sister and I peed in the lake, so we didn’t have to leave the water. We’d scream at the sky and shuck our swimsuits when it thundered. We dove down to the sandy bottom, looking for sharks. It was just us, bobbing up and down, swimming for the grey reef shark with a rubbery nose. Like Grandpa! We tweaked his nose in the casket and giggled. Mother said SHHHH and then we laughed so hard I peed a little right there. Dad said, oh, Deb, let them laugh while she cried because it was her dad who died. When we got out of the water, our skin was tinged blue, but we licked our lips, looked at our dad, and screamed: ICE CREAM!
This poem received an honourable mention in our 2024 Spring Short Competition.
Seraphina has a BA in Literature from Simone Fraser University and participated in the Creative Writing Program at UC Berkeley. Seraphina is a Kundalini teacher, writer, and poet. She admires Clarice Lispector’s prose, Octavia Butler’s fiction, and the philosophy of Simone Weil. Seraphina currently lives in Istanbul.