God is with you
in Irish, we say hello with “dia duit”
which translates to “god is with you”
in Irish we greet each other holy water saliva.
my Irish is meager grain of sand,
a mouth begging for water,
the salton sea my body
cannot sink within.
“le do thoil”* out my mouth like confession
more holy than hello.
more holy home than classroom,
my teeth are returning
to old stories.
my great grandfathers Irish
grew cypress tree,
leaning like axon after the stroke,
still a holdfast in the storm on his tongue.
his Irish, the family blood clot.
my Irish, heart murmur misfiring
like caged canary in my chest.
our Irish still living bone,
I lick clean.
*"Please."
CHESTINA CRAIG(she/her) lives on the California coast with her cat. Her work has been published by The Rising Phoenix Review, Sea Foam Mag, Button Poetry and others. She has presented her work at The Presidents Commission on The Status of Women, The Young Women’s Empowerment Conference, & more. She has a degree in Marine Biology, loves to meld science and art, and sometimes pets sharks or hangs out with octopi. She hopes that one day she will only be required to wear gauzy clothing, study the ocean, and get paid to have too many feelings. Her chapbook “body of water” came out October 2017 with Sadie Girl Press.
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