The Way We Move Through Water

By Lino Anunciacion

Lino Anunciacion’s The Way We Move Through Water is layered and balanced with a dark beauty that readers will be haunted by long after putting this book down.

This debut poetry collection is a faulty navigation system that guides you through the unforgiving griefwater. These poems use serene, yet haunting imagery to tackle the legacy of our pasts and the lineages we owe our lives to. He uses his experiences in loss and trauma as a black boy in America to show how long this journey towards liberation and livelihood can be. He doesn’t want you to forget the names of the things we’ve lost, the progress left to be made. Still, even though there is so much work to be done, Lino reminds us that the only way out is through. He respects his audience enough to know, that we already know how we hurt.

Lino's poetry sees us and meets us where we are: proximal to the pain. He isn't crafting or crawling into the coffin– Lino is beside us, tossing his best flowers onto it. His poetry sees us in our Sunday best when we're at our worst, and reminds us that we are still alive. With poems highlighting the sea, fresh flowers, birds, and the nature around us, this collection is very much alive, and enjoying this life with you, not in front of you, but next to you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Write Bloody Publishing
• Release date: Sep 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781949342079

Book preview

Abdurraqib

1.

NAVY

I was born by the river | in a little tent | Oh and just like the

river, I’ve been runnin’ ever since | It’s been a long time coming |

but I know a change gonna come

| oh yes, it will.

—Sam Cooke

WATER IS THE PRAYER

I don’t pray the way I used to | mostly silence | mostly tears | but this is original prayer | the first words | a sacrificial ritual | I give you all the salt | and water | in my body | and in return | I come up clean |

I don’t understand why I need to speak | for you to hear me | when all I know of you is silence | unfamiliar with your voice beyond the words of passing strangers | did you really speak of light | when you poured water over the salt | of the earth | and said | that it | was good | or was it | all in | your head |

I too | have sent my love in the form of silence | but never in the form of floods | if crying is the ritual | water is the prayer | but I don’t feel clean | and neither should you | | amen |

GODWATER

A widow in the making rubs

a wet cloth against her husband’s feverish skin.

A barista dips their burnt finger tips

in a glass of melting ice.

A hurricane washes away a confederate

statue made of copper.

A storm pulls the loose petals

from a cherry blossom tree.

Blood drips from the edge

of a searing exit wound.

The Sun can still be seen on

the edge of a rain cloud.

The restorative forces of water

can still be considerably dangerous

an overdose | or |

conceptually | a flood

I | too | have choked on what I believed

would heal me.

Sent the holiest things down

the wrong pipe.

I | too | have put too much

faith in rain.

If god is in | the water,

I am both thirsty and drowning.

If god is in | the water

I am swimming the wrong way.

LEMONADE

I’m holding a wet towel to your forehead

pouring cold water over your palms.

America, you were the second woman I ever loved

the first creature I ever wanted to hold in my hands

since I was old enough to know of want and hold

I dreamed of small flags and ovals and stars

I dreamed of a million ears pressed against my chest

a country of people, all certain