hollow-eyed/earthtorn/seatossed leviathan, how many ancient questions you strew
across this sacred shelf. Blue-green Caribbean chaos sculpted your stump. Elemental tides—scrubbed, smoothed and burnished your grain, sun-whitening it. In your jaw
is a ritual arrow I clenched in mine tom-toming my way into manhood. The red-ribboned eagle bone whistle I blew sundancing to a bison head pole—to summon
the Great Spirit in the Crazy Mountains of Montana. Forgive me coral-fan bareback rider, I scubaed you illegally off a reef near Cozumel.

Dragon of the deep,
airborne in prayer,
you arch into ethers
—a silent flow amid
a jungle of praise.
Leaps of ecstasy
and angst—allow
sun-kissed flukes,
freed from muck,
to rise, a sentinel
revealing the joy
of each moment
as a choice-point—
to fling off time’s
sand and strip down
to the nub of what’s
real.