Shanty

There is something in this world
that is so big, we can’t get
to the bottom of it.
No one goes there,
except maybe as a fragment,
long dead.

& yet, there are so many forms
of life down there, beyond even worms.
There are spineless monsters
with snowy, hoary heads
and masses of waving tentacles,
pallid like the coiled leavings
in the gut bin at the grocer’s.

Maybe they’re just little souls—
the floating sacs of saline
and transubstantiated life.
Maybe they were grown
from human flesh
and are just as much a reflection
of us as they are horrible.

The creatures down there could well be a figment.
So could the soul.

& I think I could go on believing that
if only the floating death masks that leer
in the deep like repressed memories
didn’t suck at me
every time I smell life on the air,
pungent and dark.