Eighty Fathoms Up
A second more of light, and that’s the most.
Tomorrow less. You’d never feel it go.
A tire someone rolled here fills with rain and
breeds wrigglers. Club moss combs the forest floor,
and coral fungus reefs an old-growth shore.
The cliff goes up so sheer it shows you flat –
you, a smear, a layer, thin pale line of
lime from some marine summer laid to that.
Sheer all the way, no ledge. The sandstone’s fine
dead creekbed and a deader sea, and down
is always more of down. You drowned here long
before today, you drowned before the beech,
before the year began to turn toward
the dark it’s turning now. Still terrapene
drags its shell of spent sea through dying green.
