The Drowned Women

Cirri and Pila upend their buckets   

over gleaming silver troughs.

Mother Elda smiles at the sight 

of spiny urchins and shivering squid

and rainbow-skinned 

cuttlefish.

She unzips a squid 

with brackish fingernails that sink

into ink sack. 

Blue and black tides rise 

up rippling forearms, 

bloom with salt and wet earth

and more 

than a little blood. 

Every day her daughters trek 

through the lagoon 

that no outsider 

would ever brave.

The Drowned Women

villagers whisper,

for they breathe water

like air. They have silt

in their blood, salt to speak, 

and brine for bone. 

They are daughters

of the sea.

Alyssa Jordan (she/her) is a writer living in the United States. She pens literary horoscopes for F(r)iction Series. Her stories can be found or are forthcoming in The Sunlight Press, X–R-A-Y Literary Magazine, LEON Literary Review, and more. You can find her on Twitter @ajordan901 or Instagram @ajordanwriter.