Near Drowning


the diver will return soon
and release me from this floating seaweed
he has planted among the coral
I caught my flipper and rolled into it
and many reef surge swells have passed
and I've not reached the surface
the warm smooth element of my headworld

I have stayed down before
dove deep under the great whites
when the nights are long 
and the great whales throng
I know clarity hunger in such moments
but I could always find the blue holes
and rise between the billows
to beak wide gasp at the green land
beyond the violent foam and black shore
but here is a sharper hunger

was I just chasing fish on the coast
not gnaw hungry inside, just playing
with my other in near water
we were dipping into shadowy caverns
and up into the frail day end light
my other laughed at my lapse
then faded into the cloudy distance
I lost sight in the failing grayness
I heard him crying among the rocks
what was it I felt at that moment?

this weed most resembles bottom sand
with its woven imbricate texture
or perhaps the clarity edge in calm wind
something of the soft skinned diver
to catch the fish I see ensnared
no longer moving mouths or fins
color fading even in this light
shimmering schools of small fish
passing to and fro with each surge
seem not bothered by this tangle
but the more I struggle
the less I am free to swim

the diver must return soon
and free me from my fear
the water closes about me
like the octopus on the clam
I have never been so far away
beyond even the ancestral shoals
my older blood swam from long ago
when the sides of the water were close
and the hatchlings swam with them
in the warmth of our cozy sea
but I have seen so few small ones
they, like I, are on their own
to cross and recross the blue depths
to face the shark and the squid
and find the sand and lay the eggs
though few such sands are left
to drift among the coral heads
and the lava jutting from the floor

I am becoming dark in the world
beyond the darkness of the night
a cold gnawing invades me
as if the sea has breached my shell
I have begun to hallucinate
the diver has returned
and has removed every lobster
he tries to untangle me
but I feel sharp pain in my side
the morning sun reddens my blood
I move as the water moves
a gentle rolling back and forth
I see bits of me floating down
I fear I am awakening to my death
as he pulls me up to the surface
and beak open, sweet clarity enters me