Shoreless

By Amanda Scheifele

Have you ever wondered how deep the sea goes?
And not just how deep it goes into the earth’s skull,
but how deep it goes into itself? How long
would you be sinking if you fell into the ‘a’ in Pacific?
Do the whales know of the depthless mass
beneath them as they squiggle slowly by?
And what of the flying fish?
Do they conceive that the depths beneath them
are less than the depths above them?
The ocean is deep, but the sky is deeper.
We shoot metal bubbles down to discover the Titanic,
but the fireballs we shoot up get lost behind the moon.
In fact, the sky is more of an ocean than the ocean itself.
The ocean is lonely, but the stars are far more apart.
The ocean is deep, but the universe is limitless.
The ocean trembles, but the galaxy quakes.
The ocean is wide but the suns have no shores.
The idea of no shores.
To just float.
To let your breath
out in oxygen octagons.
Sink into the depths,
with nothing around
but a billion stars
all beyond reach.