poem: Karen Finneyfrock

Oceanography

There are seven layers to the ocean.
The top one is clear, cellophane or wax paper, moves
like oil with no respect for irony.

The second layer is ocean wax, which liquefies
as it gets cold instead of hot, so ocean wax
is thinnest near the ice caps.

Layer three is made up of animals. Squid arms drift
through a sideshow of fish. Where you look, you see eyes.

Layer four is akin to hypnosis. So deep, you relax to go there.
There are still animals, eyes orange in the Halloween night, glow tape
on the theatre stairs. The slow fade begins.

Layers five and six are peelings of the abyss, the abyss and the great abyss.
People think it is silent down there, but the whales scream when
sonar bass drums itself on the ocean’s skin. Black ink on black paper.
Everything that swims has legs.

The ocean’s bottom layer is the volcano’s mistress. She kisses
the hot mouth of the earth with lips so salty, Earth sizzles, excites him
with her wetness, holds him as he grows hotter and hotter.

Fighting and making love look the same to the seventh layer of the ocean.
Either one could cause a tidal wave.

KAREN FINNEYFROCK is a poet, novelist and teaching artist in Seattle, WA. Her second book of poems, Ceremony for the Choking Ghost, was released on Write Bloody press in 2010. Her young adult novel, Celia, the Dark and Weird, is forthcoming on The Viking Press in 2012. She is a Writer-in-Residence at Richard Hugo House in Seattle and teaches for Seattle Arts and Lectures’ Writers-in-the-Schools program.