after Alexis Pauline Gumbs
I dive my body into the deep end, pluck golden leaves
from the silty bottom, nearly drown.
I push my body against concrete, surrender
to ribboning light, grow rapturous
in the gravity of quiet. Days I can't see you
I continue my study of beaked whales
and pink dolphins—mystery species
who survive by going stealth, unsurveilled
by the terror. Away from the carnival
of recognition, I could be the moon.
I could mother myself by swimming circles
around an absence until it speaks.
Whatever in me might nourish you
mends itself in the undrowned part of the planet
that navigates by the depths of untraceable tongues.
Days I can't feel you I let myself feel you.
I study the blueprints of bioluminescence
in underwater caves. You do not dim.
Days I Can't Feel You by Brynn Saito | Sandalwood & Vanilla Poetry Reed Diffuser
$15.00Price
Brynn Saito is the author of three poetry collections, including Under a Future Sky (Red Hen Press, 2023). She co-edited with Brandon Shimoda The Gate of Memory: Poems by Descendants of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration (Haymarket Books, 2025) and co-wrote with Traci Brimhall Bright Power, Dark Peace (Diode Editions, 2016). A California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellow, Brynn is the recipient of the Benjamin Saltman Award and a finalist for the Northern California Book Award. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, VOGUE, and American Poetry Review. A fourth generation Korean American and Japanese American, Brynn lives and teaches in Fresno, California.
