Floating

A sunken boat on a cold cloudy day
still has its value. It can still be salvaged
with some rope and muscle. The rain
has no voice here. It has done its worst,
and when it falls on the lake and makes the water
shiver, the dock hands hear it, but do not

forgive it. Instead, they listen to
the rope tightening. Its braid
creaking. Threatening to snap and send
boat and life and body
floundering
into the lake
like an unwanted fish
caught
by an ambitious fisherman.
Like a fish with no fins,
no gills, and the sharpest teeth.

There is no Atlantis at the bottom of the ocean.
Gold
always floats. That’s why
a drowned body will rise up
to the water’s surface. Cream
of the crop. Floating. Face down.
The back of its neck
sunburnt red. Floating.
A person
can look at a lake and think
that they are a God

of a new sky. That’s why the water has to swallow
their boats and bodies, digest its meat
and spit out the bones. Show them
a carcass they can grieve for.

When a fisherman smiles and holds up a carcass
to take a photo, the water will look
like a ghost
in the polaroid’s background.

When a carcass
is thrown back into the lake,
the red circle that grows
is not blood; it is
the rage of the water. Watch

as it turns into a sunburnt neck.

Floating.

“Lost at sea” was never about those lost.
It was always about the sea.
The way it calls on the Gods
of the original sky as an ally in war. Craves the wind
and rain and lightning to feed
its power. Weapons
of destruction. The sea learned about cruelty

the same way Frankenstein’s monster did:
Immediately. Consistently. Without
apology
or regret.

A sunken boat on a cold cloudy day still has its value;
it is salvageable, but only because the water
knows mercy. It is not interested
in vengeance, only in self-protection.

Chew up a boat and regurgitate it,
and people should take the hint.
Swallow up Atlantis
and it ceases to exist.
Myth. Legend. A story
to be enchanted by. A mystery
to fantasize about. Call it

“The lost city.” But it was never about those lost.
It was always about the sea. When a carcass
shows up on its shore,
that is an example. No myth.
No mystery. When rain
hits
the lake and is ignored,

that is a warning. Like a snake that rattles its tail
to ward of predators, the water rattles its body
and says
“I can do much worse. Please don’t make me have to.”

The dock hands hear this,
but they do not
forgive it.

Instead, they pull the boat out of the lake.

Floating.

The motor waterboarded. And they stare out
at the vast open water, and they wonder
about the mysteries it holds—

it stories—
its histories—

how it came to be so powerful—

and how they became more powerful than it.

So powerful

that four of them
could salvage a boat from its jaws
for whatever value
was left.

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Floating