Seance

We used to play dead in the water, hanging lifeless
in the above-ground pool, puppets with our strings set aside.
We bubbled, made motions toward kneeling on polymer,
the solid drum of the bottom.

Our fingers danced in space under the surface.
Our arms floated before us like something calling out.
To us? To the water, singing before boil, before
we couldn’t take it anymore. The liquid world
closed in on our lungs. Pretending we were

bog corpses dragged from a river became tight
and old. Someone dropped their goggles.
Our swimsuits, old honey, stuck to our wet skin.

There was raisined discomfort. Weightless masses
like hulls bumping against each other at dock. Knees knocking.
Lungs emptied like plastic bags of sand and shells.

We all burst through states of matter, found ourselves
around a table. Joined hands. Promised to dive for the goggles, later.

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Adriana Beltrano is a poet from Jupiter, Florida. She is pursuing her MFA in poetry at Johns Hopkins University, where she is a managing editor of the Hopkins Review. She was named a 2024-25 Jake Adam York Prize finalist, and her work is forthcoming in HAD, the South Carolina Review, Little Patuxent Review, and Frozen Sea.