Submerged by Pegah Ouji

It’s raining hard when my daughter slams open the front door, another day at first grade done, gone are cloth diapers and fitful naps, her slam rattles the house, rattles the still lake outside, and in my head it feels even louder, it always feels louder, “Guess what, my homework is to save water!” she says, holding up a paper, a cartoon drop of blue, I rinse wild-caught trout scales down the drain, my daughter’s Fjällräven backpack, rain jacket, boots, abandoned on the floor, shed like dead skin, a tornado child, a blizzard, she runs through the rooms, it’s still raining hard, I rinse foam bubbles off dinner dishes, “Every time you wash dishes, you waste 4 gallons of water,” she says, fishing through the brimming recycling bin, she places a detergent lid under the bathroom’s leaky faucet, “we can water the plants with this,” she says, a knock on the door, her new non-toxic pajamas delivered, unicorns riding rainbows, fifty dollars, insurance against cancer, against infertility, against fears rummaging my mind at night, post-bedtime, post-parenting, post-modern, post-humanity, what lies post-us? It’s still raining, and I wonder but don’t say, with all this water, do we need to save any more, outside the kitchen window, the lonesome cries of Poorwills, her pajamas twice her size, she’s a stick in a pillow, brushes her teeth, “I can only use this much water,” she holds up a cup, the size of my espresso shots, sips it, spits it, the mirror scrubbed with Dr. Bronner’s natural cleaner, now marked with rivulets of spit, non-fluoride toothpaste, bubblegum scent, outside the lake murmurs, glitter kissed, my fears grow with the moon, I read Winnie-the-Pooh, she laughs at a bear’s aspiration to become a balloon, I laugh at my aspirations to be anything more than this, more like @naturallmotherhood, #knowbetterdobetter, less plastic, more wood, less punishment, more “of course, you can,” words foreign to my own ears, the laundry machine hums, “Washing machine uses 14 gallons per load, mama” she says, drooping eyelids, fighting sleep, fighting the close of one day,  I don’t blame her, I too, sometimes, fear tomorrows, fear the growth of landfills, the waters rising, the forests sinking, the slow-warming of our lives, I kiss her goodnight, escape to the backyard, the still lake, clouds gone, no more rain, the night a dynasty of the moon, I shed my clothes, my own dead skin, unincumbered, frigid cold, dive in the lake, waterlilies caressing my calves, even my blood frozen, water over-head, under-foot, my toes playing Marco Polo with the American waterweed, escaping their foliage tentacles, my arms slice the water, breath becomes air, trapped in my lungs, under water, I reach for something I cannot see, anything, elusive as frightened tadpoles, and as always, it slips, I reach again, grasping, gasping, reaching, failing, trying again.

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PEGAH OUJI — Pegah is an Iranian-American writer who writes in Farsi and English. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming from Joyland, Epiphany, Fugue, Split Lip, Necessary Fiction among others. She was a 2024 Emerging Writer Fellow at SmokeLong Quarterly as well as an editorial fellow at Roots, Wounds, Words. You can find her here. 

Art by MARINA MARINOPOULOS — Marina is a self-taught Greek artist based in Normandy, France. She is a member of the Association Des Couleurs et des Formes, which holds regular workshops. She paints in oils and acrylics, but also creates works on paper, using mixed media: pencil, charcoal, watercolour, collage, gold leaf. She haunts museums, exhibitions and galleries and also draws inspiration from nature, birds and animals, as well as the human figure, especially faces and hands.