Sad Submarine

Nine AM. At the office.

Coffee. Pen and ink.

Check the weather outside.

My sub and I, useful or not,

must be on watch, its lead gray hull

afloat in the still harbor. At first

I wanted to say

now that war’s less likely

and curses grown mild,

but when I listen close

I hear the clink of silver.

I crave scarlet seafood,

how in hard times its redness glows.

Hands that master information

busily stuff our maws.

When I started writing this, I saw

lovely fish besieging the shipyard,

the jumbled ledgers of state-owned firms,

the flat economies of neighboring states,

hookers’ painted faces.

Fake receipts

circle the shallows.

So I write instead

better go check the sub

before it enters deep water, and wonder

whose bloodvessel will shelter it.

Pop star fans, hippies, disco heavy metal,

periscopes that filter words.

Alcohol, nutrition, high calories—

prepositions, pronouns, interjections

fix the texture of my skin.

The sub must plunge

beyond control

to the bottom of the sea.

I said once already:

you build your own submarine,

war’s monument,

a tomb that will slumber

forever at the bottom of the sea

in service to solitary and remote moods.

As you see, assembly’s finished.

But where’s the water,

and which shore does it lap?

Now to build my own ocean

from each thing’s

impeccable sadness.