“Exotic Organisms Found In Pacific Ocean”

—The New York Times

In sulfurous plumes of water

from vents in the bottom crust,

new life continually forms

and thrives on what would kill us,

so maybe when you plunge 

into your black, internal pit

something lovely and strange

will emerge from it.

Five-foot red-headed se worms

that peek out of tubes they live in

don’t look exactly in the photo

like rampant uncircumcision

nor was the oceanographer kidding

describing that underworld scene

“like driving through a wheat field

in a submarine,”

but I tried to make it a joke

because I wanted you to laugh,

because I couldn’t touch you,

because my love was useless,

because Chekhov was right—

“the soul of another lies in darkness”—

though I feel your cells call in mine

across the abyss of inches between us

when we lie in darkness together,

your luminous eyes wide open,

three miles deep in yourself

rooted in poison.