The Keening

Waves drown
television’s blare.
Kabul falls. Haiti crumbles.
Viruses float
in amniotic sacs
but down here, submerged
the keening above
bodies return to salt and fin.
Hair ripples like tentacles.
Legs tangle in forests of kelp.
Every sea horse, every clown
fish drags
a necklace that surfaces
to the clutch of bombs.
Here, time uncoils, expands
like the widow’s flour and oil.
Silence swaddles breeding
grounds. Light shafts
currents, lusters coral reefs,
even those now dead.