Nur’aishah Shafiq, CPR

CPR

Nur’aishah Shafiq

Flesh thwacks against stone with a violent slap. The fish flails, tail flapping, delicate folds of skin are gaping mouths gasping, collapse of gills. I too

cannot breathe,

scramble to rescue, armed with makeshift home of pail, the little creature slipping my fingers trembling with intended deliverance,

my hands a failed gentleness. Little body shudders, unwilling to settle in the cup of my palms ready to soothe seizure, by the waiting room of bucket, while vast ocean of pond is scrubbed.

In the end, I must scoop— a crude gesture. Waiting until little sack of meat goes limp, resigned to breathlessness. But I make

my deposit and he is resuscitated, my CPR certificate in a puddle, unused. I finally

inhale—

but the next fugitive flies interrupting that passage between pool to net to pail finding dirt instead, to begin again hungry cycle of suspending breath,

bruising flesh. What blood blossoms beneath that thin skin, invisible to my human eye, what hidden injuries flower within that incubator of alien life.

Masked

Aya Afaneh