This week’s poem, Mark Melnicove’s “Metaphorical Leaps,” plunges us into a salmon’s-eye view of what it means to be alive. I love how this poem’s rhythms and line breaks move forward with a river-like shape and rush, and how its imagery conjures a state of being drenched in pure, visceral awareness.
Melnicove taught English for many years at Falmouth High School. Now retired, he is working on a book about creative writing and education. He has also started a writing coach and tutoring business.
Poets, please note that submissions to Deep Water are open through the end of the year. Deep Water is especially eager to share poems by Black writers, writers of color, Indigenous writers, LGBTQ writers and other underrepresented voices. You’ll find a link to submit in the credits below.
Metaphorical Leaps
By Mark Melnicove
Like salmon we jumped over
the falls, surging
upstream, outmaneuvering
stones, keeping the watershed
intact, not needing
to measure
the flow or dam
passageways or dynamite
our ancient
birthplace to survive, becoming
fluid-borne, pushing
up through rapids, counterpoint
to the river urgently roiling
toward the sea, history,
not a line, time,
not a projection
of the present onto a wished
for past, flesh
like water, wholly
soused in consciousness.
Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “Metaphorical Leaps,” copyright 2022 by Mark Melnicove, appears by permission of the author. Submissions to Deep Water are open now and through the end of the year. For more information, go to mainewriters.org/deep-water.
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