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  • What's Bottled Breaks
  • Tanya Grae (bio)

                    Not at firstlike the letter that doesn't come, but the one that does& makes no sound as it holds the room.                  This morning, rainarrives on the sill & words rise to mind & fall like swellson the piano & never cease to surprise, at least in Floridawith riptides & surrender. Sunshine State.                    Between beaches,just two days ago, I considered the world mapped.Today the roads are rearranged & the cities mislabeled—maybe the state is broken,            or my own is, or yours—birds losing direction & sense, unbecoming themselvesin pulled feathers & song. Even the resident mockingbirdcleans her wings, shrugs.              What magnetism drives this?Maybe the new moon is fornicating the sun,& we'll have hurricanes in winter.                What sound would that make?Does whispering in your ear bring a rise?                    I have imaginedfalling in love again, something I no longer thought possible, [End Page 169] but in this crescendo unresolved,              you appear again & again.What are the odds? I read a story yesterday of a West Coast boyfinding a message in a bottle        after decades at sea. [End Page 170]

Tanya Grae

Tanya Grae teaches at Florida State University while pursuing her doctorate. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, New South, Massachusetts Review, Fjords, New Ohio Review, The Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. She can be reached at tanyagrae@gmail.com.

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