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With Tailfins

Down, where your questions mirror mine

but we can never reach, there is more to say about time

diminishing as we get close, in my oxygen universe.

Cold blue blur and labored breathing.

I briefly shimmered, light diffusing.

How are we to be? If I dragged you down and down,

into deep-sea serenity, love would not be coastal.

History shivers along at a thousand meters

with its tailfins and soul-seeking dinosaurs.

We are peculiar rhythm in this scuba galaxy,

all dark dreams below waves that always crumble.

It is not enough to see the edges of eternity.

We dive recklessly for stingrays, swordfish, anemones.

Down and down, where the question is pure belief

not clarity, I bring you to this rendezvous with me.

I reach my hand into sun-shattering darkness, then pull it free.

from Forest with CastanetsFind more by Diane Mehta at the library

Copyright © 2018 Diane Mehta
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.

Published in Diane Mehta Poems

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this (publication, website, exhibit, etc.) do not necessarily represent those of the Idaho Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities.