I breathed through the tube and didn’t die, and finally I looked down and saw them. All these small fish streaking by, silvery and orange and pink, hermit crabs scuttling around the rocks, tufts of seagrass with tiny shrimp.

Sometimes she’ll circle whatever town we’re in with a wine bottle between her honey-brown knees, passing the bottle to me now and then, tussle my curls and kiss my hand.

He swears that he can feel them sometimes, phantom appendages on his back twitching and thrumming with unlived life. “I swear mummy. I swear.”

I like the look of old, liver-spotted hands
Playing Rachmaninov with complete agility
Pounding out the chords or whispering the pianissimi

Because I was brown
they cocked their thumbs
aimed pasty forefingers
at me while they shouted
‍ ‍ Take that, Geronimo!

“I’d hear this man’s footsteps above me when in bed, trying to trap the sound of his feet with my eyes…”