last words of a man overboard

(an erasure of Frank Ocean’s “Swim Good”)

that’s a pretty big                              
                                broken,                                    ain’t 

                     it?        a                      bleeding
                                 they don’t ever see.

i           try to swim;
take off this
pretty

ghost.                          ever since i lost my baby,
i’ve had this black
roaming around           me: a feral
omen.
out to the ocean.
i           try to swim
                        swim
                        swim swim, god! 
                        don’t sing.

i’m       off       saving.


by Joshua Bennett

---

Joshua Bennett is a third-year doctoral candidate in the English Department at Princeton University, Callaloo Fellow, budding essayist, and, as of this summer, teacher of 8th grade Composition. His poetry has either been published, or is forthcoming, in Drunken Boat, Poetry Northeast, Wasafiri, Disability Studies Quarterly, Clarion and The Brooklyn Quarterly. Joshua has recited his original work at venues such as The Sundance Film Festival, The NAACP Image Awards and President Obama's Evening of Poetry and Music at The White House.