He would swim off, the surest of fish,
in a dark fluid world
secure as a womb. Leap even,
lash with joy,
a finned ecstasy -
but he is hooked, stuck deep,
hopeless to dislodge,
and every lunge, every grasped-at
urgent struggle or dash
makes firmer the hold,
tightens the contract.
The union is complete.
Rudderless, dull with exhaustion,
he has given way, and now
and again now, he is drawn
surely along, reeled steadily in.
In a daze, a drugged daze
that withholds nothing, gives everything up,
he is pulled closer and closer
till water breaks, womb bursts
open around him, and air
filling his eyes with blood
troubles his skin
with a burn like ice.
-In his last
attempted focussing he feels
the unyielding grip, the clamp
of a shadowed immensity
take hold, that will not,
cannot, not ever, for ever, be released.