Contributor: Cynthia Pitman

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“We want to hear ‘emergent voices,’” they say.
“But I am not one,” I reply.
“Rather, I am a ‘submergent voice.’
Slowly I sink deeper and deeper into the hard dark water,
leaving above me a bread-crumb trail of bubbles --

one
°
after
°
another
°
after
°
another
°
°
°

until I am entirely submerged
under the solid weight of solitude.
All I want is for someone else
to hear me when I scream.”


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Last summer I began writing again after a 30-year hiatus. I have since had several poems and short stories published, including in Leaves of Ink.