The Drowning Man

The sea has caught me with her tentacles.
Half-inside her bosom I screamed and wailed

But her complaints overpowered my lungs.
Without sailors, she is lonely and torturous – she wants a moon

After being adorned by starfish and hallowed
By dolphins. I curled up in fright

But the sea pinned me straight again
And I looked up into starlessness. The moon,

She can be imitated. I thought I saw
Myself – yellowish, like a jaundiced baby, but a face

Plagued with teenhood. And in the silver of the water,
The moon saw herself too, shivering.