CW: blood.
“Sumbisori” refers to the peculiar exhale of the haenyeo-women divers in the Jeju Province of South Korea. When they surface, they let their breath out as a whistling sound that has always struck me as both a little eerie and a little lonely. It inspired me to examine the intersection between water and air, lingering in that moment before the last breath runs out.
Breach—
By the shriek of our breath you will know us,
air rushing from foreign lungs
with tidal intensity,
each exhale carving surface ripples
as unique as the whorls
of your salt-swollen fingers.
Our whistle echoes through the spray
sharp enough to sever sea from sky,
the wounded horizon
a broken abalone shell.
Give us your breath, we will hold it.
Show us the sealed edges
of all your landlocked secrets
and we’ll pry them apart, coax them out
with each gasp from your lungs,
stolen and squandered and stale.
Pretend our urchin-sharp teeth
mean nothing,
bleed drops from your lips
disguised as dark seawater—salt
begets salt, and no birth
is ever bloodless.
Every first breath in this world
is a scream, let the last
of your landborn air be a lesson
in leaving, in becoming.
You knew as well as we—
you were never content to float.
