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A Mostly True Account of Talking to a Shark Off the Coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts
The Shark hit me this evening hard and precise, saying
“You! You’re the one that invades my dreams every so often. Don’t swim away so fast. I don’t recall eating a poet in the last 30 years; ok, maybe one a few weeks ago off Truro.
But why the cold shoulder?”
Give me a minute.
I just left a flight
and it barely landed.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, when Glück left she was barely breathing,” the Shark
joked. “Most of you prefer to be on time with your tender bottoms.”
I tried to harmonize:
Do you mean
buttons?
“So you are listening and drifting further out. Am I too close?”
His skin grazed my
quad like a truck.
“Ok listen, I’m not a fan. You’re writing nothing but drivel lately - you’re just not that good.
And this obsession with Creeley has got to stop. He’s not coming back!"
This moment is for
you, you are not
for this moment.
“Stop thrashing. Breathe. The first bite is always the toughest (see what I did there?).
I try to make it quick but they kick. And scream. Pray. And promise.
Those pathetic promises - they are the worst.
You know, there was a time when just hundreds of you and many thousands of me existed. Your god is an awful accountant.”
Blackness cradled
legs furiously
pumping through
mute agony.
“There’s nothing cooler than surviving a great white shark attack and talking about it.
You’ll be fine. And interesting.”
Oh Shark, I’m so
grateful to you.
“You know, it’s so much easier for me to speak to you out here. God knows I hate tracking sand everywhere.
Maybe we’ll speak again in Aquinnah of which I too especially love. Go back to sleep now Ed, and I will leave a villanelle in you as a deep farewell.”
Damn it Shark,
don’t go!
“But I must - they’re calling
me.”
Wait. Who?
Diving he said: “Oh you know who. They’re calling you too.”
Darkly he dove.
And then, I wept.
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