Self Portrait at 31

Sara Martin

I didn’t know I was being followed until I sneezed four times in a row
like a round off back handspring back tuck
and from almost a block away he said, God Bless You.
I felt ashamed more than afraid.
Shame for thinking sometimes I was already dead.
Shame for joking once that if someone ever tried to attack me
I’d just pretend to have rabies.
Shame for still holding out
for an identity involving water sports.
Fog was blooming like a graveyard.
Sometimes, without warning, I get a word stuck in my head
backward like Choke.
That is exactly what happened: Ekohc Ekohc Ekohc…
The follower kept advancing like an angry dog, like a tall wave –
the moon moved out from behind a cloud
and I started full out sprinting
ekohc, ekohc, ekohc pounding in my head
like a memranophone: a vibrating, stretched membrane…
My legs extended completely
they stretched like taffy, in a good way
and I accelerated, marvelous and boneless
like an octopus escaping across the floor of an aquarium.
Admiring my formidable stride
I began to float beside myself like muscae volitantes –
those transparent amoeba that drift across your field of vision.
Then I dove beneath a parked car, curled in a ball like a pangolin
and promptly fell asleep.

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Sara Martin recently completely a novel in verse called They Wake Up Swinging. This poem is an excerpt from the prologue of that project. Her other recent work can be found in the Seattle Review, Nature 20/20 and on Lithub.com.