Depths

Sudden unease in the palsy

rattling each word, keeping

the voice more stable than

the pen, moving around images,

bobbing in the ripples of names,

what a strange sea this world

has become, what dangers float

below the surface, where breaths

become impossible. Best not open

your eyes while submerged in it.

The terror might make the wading

seem futile, less like survival than

the real sharpness moving around

down there. Rocks worn jagged by

the molten movement of time, jetting

up with the intensity of an entire

planet, only to be cooled instantly

as a monument to the powers of

the universe, subdued by its own

skin, fields of these towers make homes

to the strangest, most terrifying

predators. Webs hang high above

the summits, invisible amongst

the mucky flow, adhesive as death,

counting on the prey to wind themselves

further and further down, impaling itself

on the serrated peaks. The worms, so small,

finally move up on slimy bellies, from nests

deep in the crevasses, millions of them,

at the first trace of blood in the brine, devouring

their struggling catch, usually a billion times

the size of any individual, completely, then

each stands on end, every one of them, and

they release their single strand straight up,

anchoring it, before they head back into

the still unseen bottom to finish off

any bones that may have fallen further down.