Two Poems – Jay Mitra

Sonnet for an Icelandic Swimming Pool 

After John Montague 

 

Kristín is no longer a stranger by the time we shower

naked together. She guides me to the warm water. Necks

rest against the hard tiles of the pool edge. A sigh slips

from my lips, relief confessed in exhaled breath.

My untethered legs float at a buoyant frequency,

lengthen like unknotting string, jagged lightning.

A concave box of reflected light—the grey Icelandic sky—

disappears behind the shutters of Kristín’s eyes.

She tells me she comes here to sleep. In the blue rippling

theatre of the everyday, people find in public pools

what believers search for when they pray. A softening.

A stillness. Psychic surgery conducted by liquescent tools.

We prune in peace, wrinkling and childlike—our lives

suspended in unset amber, glittering, baptised.

 

 

A Hundred Phones Pointed at the Sky 

 

We travelled two hours at midnight to see the northern lights

The tour guide said you could only really see the colours

through a camera’s night mode. God, could you imagine

what a waste of time and krona it would be

if I didn’t have an up-to-date smartphone?