Moon at Half Past Noon

I. Dawn / High Tide Rising

The city stirs before the sun—
a slow exhale of steam from grates,
the groan of bridges shrugging off night’s weight.

Glass reefs catch first light,
helicopters thrum like dragonflies
darting between steel kelp forests.
The elite rise on elevator currents,
their mornings a script of saltless tides—
stock quotes flicker like minnows across screens,
while downstairs, the barista’s hands
pull espresso like dark riptides
into porcelain cups.

The drowned begin their climb—
subway eels through tunnel gloom,
their bodies pressed, a breathing wreck.
The tide pulls them toward cubicle reefs,
where they’ll parse the day into clicks,
keyboard clatter like shrimp-shells cracking,
while the boss’s voice, a distant foghorn,
warns of storms they never see.

The sun bleaches sidewalks bare—
low tide reveals what the night left behind:
a single sneaker, a rat’s ribcage,
a shopping list dissolving in gutter streams.

Food carts billow squid-ink smoke,
office drones gulp sushi boats
with soy sauce oceans too small to drown in.
They scroll through dreams sold as destinations—
Bali, Paris, a cabin by a lake—
while their own skyline flickers,
a screen-deep blue they no longer see.

A welder’s torch spits cobalt flame—
a deep-sea vent in urban black.
His mask fogs with every breath,
his sweat rolls salt into his eyes.
Above him, cranes arc like herons’ thighs,
plucking steel from barges,
building higher, always higher.
Stay. Just watch. Just see—
the tide you’re drowning in is free.

When the offices bleed out their light,
the city changes its skin again.

Neon jellyfish pulse in alley currents,
slick with rain and last night’s perfume.
The rich retreat to penthouse reefs,
where infinity pools mimic the sea’s horizon,
though none remember how to swim.

Beneath fire escapes, the truly submerged emerge—
night-shift phantoms with moon-pale hands,
scrubbing floors, hauling trash,
their bodies bending to a tide
that never ebbs, only demands.
A street preacher wades through the gutter,
shouting psalms to the sodium stars,
while the river of taxis carries no one home.

Beneath it all, the old city sleeps—
subway dragons coiled in mud,
forgotten pipes where groundwater weeps.
The bones of ships wedge under piers,
their timber ribs picked clean by years.

Even here, the pressure builds:
foundations crack like submarine hulls.
Up above, the human swarm
still thrashes toward phantom currents—
more money, more likes, more time—
while the ocean laughs in the subway’s groan,
in the alley’s sigh, the phone’s dull drone.

You want to shake them by the shoulders:
Stop. Look down.
See how the pavement glistens after rain,
how your reflection wavers in the oil-slick,
a fleeting thing, already dissolving.

We cling like barnacles to rusted rails,
scraping for purpose, hoisting our sails,
chasing the mirage of some brighter shore,
while the waves keep breaking
at our own front door.

The ocean doesn’t care if you float or sink.
It only knows the moon’s pull,
and the weight of all your sunk-shift dreams,
rolling over, again and again,
until even the sharpest steel erodes to sand.