Escape

I sink through sun-riffled water
Lie buried in kelp
on bone-dusted sand
Tough green ribbons
of seaweed wrap my body
From my lungs used bubbles of air
drift up a light-ray
I turn off my head lamp
fold my straining ears
taste stillness
with the edge of my mind

Patricia Wellingham-Jones, a former psychology researcher and writer/editor, is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Chapbooks include Don’t Turn Away: Poems About Breast Cancer (PWJ Publishing) and Hormone Stew (Snark Publishing). She just won the Palabra Productions Chapbook Contest with End-Cycle, poems about caregiving. Her website is www.wellinghamjones.com.