OCEAN

And now:

it is easy to forget

what I came for

among so many who have always

lived here

swaying their gilded fans

between the bright blue-green reefs

and,

besides,

down here,

you breathe differently.

I came to explore the wreck.

I came to see the damage that was done

and seek the treasures that prevail.

I came for the wreck

and not the story of the wreck;

for the drowned faces hiding

away from the oozing sun:

the evidence of damage.

This is the place.

And I am here,

And I have company:

the mermaid whose dark hair

blackens the stream.

We shall circle silently

about the wreck,

the bodies and all

and quite unseen,

one dark day,

dive headlong to the trove-hold deep.