The Message Invert
We thought the trick was getting out,
to slip the salt and drift about,
to find a shore where hands might pry
our ribboned parchment dry.
Instead, the cork was pressed too tight.
We learned to sleep in cylinder light,
our shoulders curved to meet the glass,
watching the silent currents pass.
A calendar curls inside the seam;
the ink dissolves its oldest dream.
Out there, the whales go gray and blind;
in here, no hour is left behind.
We breathe the air of ninety-four,
a trapped, unchanging parlor floor.
To be preserved is not to live,
but neither must we break, or give.
Inventory of the Capsule at Fifty Feet
Three pennies stamped with copper gloss,
a ribbon free of dust or moss,
a photograph of someone’s lawn
taken at an unremembered dawn.
The town above went modern, tall,
forgot the vault behind the wall,
forgot the voices sealed in lead
announcing what the mayor said.
Down here, the silence doesn’t tick.
The metal walls are cold and thick.
A generation holds its breath,
too whole for life, too neat for death.
We wait for picks, for sudden day,
for fingernails to scrape away
the paraffin, the rusted screws,
and ask us for our ancient news.
Ship in the Neck
5
The builder had a pair of tweezers,
patience, and a length of twine.
He pushed us through the narrow channel,
spine by wooden spine.
Then pulled the string. The rigging rose.
The linen sails flared round and taut.
He corked the world against the weather,
pleased with what he bought.
Now never does the timber rot,
and never does the canvas rip.
A perfect sea of turquoise resin
holds the static ship.
The storm outside can drown the shelf,
the dust can choke the mantle clear—
we starve for wind, we ache for reef,
safe forever here.
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