Our Lungs

By Madeline McConico

Madeline McConico (she/her) is a Chicago-based poet, editor, and artist.She holds a BA in English from Iowa State University and completed her MFA at Columbia College Chicago. Her work has appeared in Allium: A Journal of Prose & Poetry, Opal Literacy,  POTLUCK, and more. She currently works as a part-time adjunct at Lewis University, while serving as the Co-Founder, Editor, and Creative Director of the upcoming project and publication Unwoven Literary Magazine. Madeline is a Co-Curator for Off the Page: Poetry Reimagined. In her free time, Madeline is an impassioned intermediate yogi and an avocado toast eater. She lives with her roommate Annalise, who she hopes to buy a clown fish with soon.

I remember when dad had his hands

around my mother’s neck. Her back

pressed into the kitchen sink. The sound

of water running.

Wishing more than anything that if I

opened my mouth wide enough, and

breathed deeply, that I might be able to

pull air into both of our lungs—

That she might feel the rush of God

himself leaning down, touching her lips

with his.

Feel the cool rush of breathing,

quintessentially— before the Fall.

Where men did not press women into

sinks.

My eyes met hers and together we hoped

that if God truly sees all, that he might

see this too.

I remember my dad held a gun before he

ever held a woman. That he was trapped

on the outside of the entire world. Where

the public pools were closed.

Where the fences weren’t white and the

lawns weren’t green. But the Police

always came. The sky could fall and

Hell could rise and no one would notice

the sound of another Black boy

drowning. Seeing God’s face too soon.

And so I remember my mother's neck.

My dad’s tensed knuckles. The sound of

running water. And think about calling

the police. And I think about this…

If both your parents were drowning—

struggling to breathe— and you could

only save one—