Not-knowing, the last of the last times slipped past
us like small ships—no memory of the last
hand within hand, the last curving against
curve, the last naming, the last receptor clasping
and unclasping—the last trace
of us traveling from spine to mind, axons
to dendrites—a relay of loss.

If we took every fish and scattered them equidistant
across the waters, there’d be less than one
minnow for every Olympic-sized swimming pool of sea.

There are many ways to describe loneliness. There are not
enough ways for light to travel through water.

There are approximately three million wrecks
beneath the seas. Imagine if a ship knew it’d be her last
sail, how deliberately she would’ve gripped
the salt winds, how tentative her bow,
how, peering within, she’d marvel at all that shine
and shining—all that light inside of her,
all those seafarers calling her name.

Once, we learned that humans know more about the surface
of Mars than the seabed. If we were anything
together, we were cosmologists—how much easier
it is to look up, where space can’t
flood out the planets, not even the ones light-years
away. Once, I told you that if I could be anything,
I’d be diving, I’d be a trace against the seafloor, tendering.

Note: The poet would like to thank the writer of the article “If the Ocean Was Transparent: The See-Through Sea” for the scientific facts that inspired this poem.