Night Swim, Tempelfjorden, Svalbard
Something preceded me as I plunged
into meltwater so smooth, beyond glacial. I saw
light where there was none. I cut
into darkness to descend faster than heart
beat. My body signaled silence. When I came up
to air I saw the fjord shift imperceptibly—
the fox gray earth barely holding all
it had seen. Ancient spirits flew up
toppled, spun with kittiwake and guillemot
shelving off from the glacier's eyes
down to the tumbled scree of my heart.
And they buoyed me. Here, I am not allowed to die.
SUSANNAH LEE’s chapbook Wintering Over is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. An independent producer for public radio and film, Lee was Fulbright scholar in Portugal, and her radio stories have aired on NPR, PRI, and Monitor Radio. Her poems have appeared in Cloudbank 17, Nine Mile Magazine, Ploughshares, Sonora Review, The Woven Tale, and others. “Night Swim, Tempelfjorden, Svalbard” was written after sailing on a barquentine throughout the Svalbard Archipelago with The Arctic Circle in October of 2022.
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