We live just on the surface
As the rock underneath shifts
We never lift covers
Or look under beds
Never examine the dust
In the corners
We are not in the business of
Shifting debris or rubble
Moving rocks or turning over
Rotting logs, broken furniture
It’s fine. It’s A-Okay
We’re the foam, the scum
The bubbles of fetid air
We’re the crumpled plastic sheets
The Styrofoam cups
The refuse of a thing that’s all teeth and hunger
Always floating to the top
We tell ourselves there is no power on Earth
As the water
Slowly
Rises.
Sakina Hassan is a freelance writer who creates short fiction and poetry in her spare time. Her story ‘The Shoeshop Jinn’ won the 2023 Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction, while ‘Bodies in the Air’ was longlisted for the 2023 Zeenat Haroon Writing Prize and included in their commemorative anthology Mightier. Her poetry has been published by The Aleph Review, And Other Poems, and Gully Collective.