Portrait of the Marianas Trench

I walk the fault, not
looking for an earthquake,
but a quickening.
A falling
bird spiraling like
a worn top, top spinning
like melting magnet.
The in-between is
where we get lost.
That moment between saying
something and realizing
what we’ve said.
A path.
Perhaps the way
the oak sways
in stillness is replicable
though I haven’t wandered
beneath the brush
in quite some time.
My feet find tracks
lined in graying mushrooms,
rooted veins
crisscrossing something
that was just there.
A lingering.
A kind of ghost—
one that walks through
life instead of walls.
Yes, I’ve seen the moon
drop from its mount, crust-
white shell shattered
like a bulb.
Bulb crushed into
separating palms.
Tell me about the way
it feels beneath a mind.
The way a man can eat
with his eyes, hungry,
vacant, dust in worn-
down mouth.
Purple-toothed clouds
drift over praying fields,
trails asking what it means
to be abandoned.
Tell me
that rain baptizes
the way a dove only swims
in rivers, wading
in what becomes an ocean.
Tell me
that I’ll know how to swim.