Undulant as banked blue
asperitas clouds, bright as the film
around a fish's eye— which is how
you can tell it's fresh, so you can harvest
its life. It's funny but sometimes the dead
seem to communicate better than
the not yet dead. Back when you were a child
you took a pink plastic hair band and taped
a length of twine to each side. Then you looped
the ends together around a hairpin and punched
connections through a paper switchboard.
Do you still hear that vast humming beneath
the surface? Fields of seagrass scarred by boat
propellers; mangroves collapsed in stagnant water.