Twilight

As you grew older in the other room

Surrounded by your books and sadness

In an apocalypse of sleeplessness

I realized Massachusetts,

Like you,

Is a foreign country.

I breathed in twilight,

Bluish air,

Knowing.

Here is no such thing as snow

And I don’t miss it.

* * *

Like an American

I like to twist my tongue

In my mother’s mother-tongue

           Koshtam shepeshe

           Shepeshkoshe sheshpaurah

I imitate,

I don’t understand

I tried on her shawl

The other day

But it slipped off my shoulders,

It just didn’t fit

My feet are too big

For the small shoes

Worn by her

And her mother before her

I even pour tea

Like an American,

Bubbles rising everywhere.

* * *

But Where Would They Build a Home?

1.

gliding on those wings, thinking

I wonder how it began. Did she gaze

at the sea looking for Finns?

or did she only just happen to notice,

one day, the paths made within

water?

did the sight of him ruffle her feathers?

2.

underneath the ocean, longing

every day, every night he swam

the same old seas. What made him look

up, what drew him to the heavens?

did he feel trapped by cold

waters?

stifled by the schools?

3.

a lonely flight

a change in time, winging

forwards, backwards, singing

around herself. Confusion

of a different feather.

4.

a new stroke

riding the crest, glinting

off a stronger wave. Opening

to ideas outside of

water.

5.

a mid-flight graze, they join

together.

              Did he hear her singing?

              Did she see him shine?

              What made her hover as he leapt-

              What made them tempt time?

now he swims a faster pace,

while she flies above

but tell me can a bird and fish

truly fall in love?

                                                              --Shanee Michaelson

Shanee Michaelson’s background includes work as an attorney in family law and insurance subrogation. If you don’t know what subrogation is, you don’t want to know. Her articles have appeared in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, Jewsweek.com, and The Iranian-Jewish Chronicle. She currently studies creative writing at the University of Southern California and is working on a romantic comedy screenplay.