On nights when we search 
for mountains of Magellanic clouds, 
the sailors punch holes in the sky.  
Coal sacks. Darkness so deep and velvet 
it pours back into 
the telescopic eye. 

By day, I walk the deck 
on wet, bare feet.  
Sharks circle our ship.  
Until one is hooked and hoisted 
onto the deck. The men smell blood, 
gather to rip its rough belly open. 
Pour what’s left of it – body and chum – 
back into the churning sea.  

And somehow, it swims on, 
crooked, spelling a dark sentence 
back into the deep.  

What comes are the others.  The like-bodied.  
The like-minded.  Until, what was body, 
what was sandpaper-skinned and muscle-taught, blooms 
into a mountainous cloud.  Into deepness.