Noctiputations
Three a.m., and night is an oil spill
seeped down to the benthic zone.
The way a man-of-war is simultaneously
individual and colony,
I am wide-awake and exhausted.
My head, sunken into the pillow, fills
with ideas, insights, plans, and epiphanies
like the gold coins and suits of armor
stuffed inside a seafloored shipwreck.
I load my arms and make for the surface
where the submerged treasures
will atomize in the barbarous sunlight,
and the waking world, as always,
will plunder me of my private riches.
