What it costs

Now it costs to say

I will survive, now when

my words coat my clenched

teeth with blood, now

when I have been yanked

off love like a diver

whose hose is cut.

I push against

the dizzying onslaught

of heavy dark water.

Up or down? While

the heart kicks

like a strangled rabbit

and the lungs buckle

like poor balloons:

I will survive.

I will lift the leaden

coffin lid of the surface

and thrust my face

into the air.

I will feel the sun’s

rough tongue on my face.

Then I’ll start swimming

toward the coast

that must somewhere

blur the horizon

with wheeling birds.

This poem appeared in The Moon is Always Female by Marge Piercy, published by Alfred A. Knopf, 1994. Shared here with profound gratitude.

10.09.2026

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