Unsignified

1 Minute Read Time

This photograph shows itself submerged underwater with a ray of light peaking from the surface. — Photo by Greg Nerantzakis on Unsplash

I

There’s part of me that isn’t a girl

When she stamps and rages
red lights shoot along the ground

Unafraid of the moss-hung woods 

She goes there
when the world wants to erase her 

Or to the ocean floor

Shape-shifter	    Tentacled 
Writhing and lighting up

Tetras float around her
She sends up a wave of sound

II
Once I had a friend

We dreamed in two genders	      and when we woke 

We spoke of invisible things




III
Sometimes your love constructs like a foreign language 
from a country
                            where everyone knows who they are
I visit	            You push my hair
into the style of the women	   and pull me toward 
               their sound

There’s part of me
this country never touches

IV

Once you came to explore the undersea

We’d tossed for days in a ship near your shore 

Then I took your hand and plunged—

             Your eyes to mine through the blue

You took
a delicate tentacle into your mouth

Megan Alpert

is the author of The Animal at Your Side, which won the Airlie Prize and was a finalist for the National Poetry Series and the Julie Suk Award. My poems have appeared widely in journals, including Colorado Review, Muzzle, Copper Nickel, Crab Orchard Review, Harvard Review, The Cincinnati Review, and Denver Quarterly. I’ve been a resident-fellow at Vermont Studio Center, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Evolve Marquette Creative Residency, and The Studios at MASS MoCA.

I started my journalism career in the Ecuadoran Amazon, where I reported on the effects of oil development and ecotourism. After freelancing for a year, I was awarded an editorial fellowship at Foreign Policy magazine, where I wrote daily blog posts and long-form articles. In 2016, I received a reporting fellowship from the International Women’s Media Foundation to report on the Colombian Peace Deal. I’ve written for The Atlantic, Smithsonian, The Guardian, and Vice. I also worked as a senior editor at Snopes from 2016-2017.

I completed my MFA at the Bennington Writing Seminars, where I studied poetry and fiction. I’m also a graduate of the Gateless Academy and a participant in The Writing Mentors training program. My first short story is forthcoming in The Bennington Review.

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