The Shallows



I’m the infant seamaster.

I like fishing in the shallows,
Especially for coelacanths.
I like praying to rocks,
Especially headstones.
I like to sail,
Especially when the tides turn heavenward.

I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes
In a rotting whale carcass
Beached on the sands of an hourglass.

Gepetto is here, looking for his son.
His impetus.
He sits at his table,
Writing letters to his falsified little boy
As I laugh.

He spares me no ink.
I warm myself with stomach acid,
Slowly dissolving.

I wade further into the vacuum,
Trace the whalespine to infinity,
Find a pen in the intestines
Full of ink.

I return to steal a sheet of paper from Gepetto,
I write,
Finally understanding his fingers,
And write until there’s no ink left.

Gepetto disappears with his little boy.
I keep dissolving
Alone.

I read my pages aloud a million times,
They are worth nothing.

I crumple them, cast them into acid,
Watch
As they’re endlessly digested,
Me along with them.

I like to break my fingers,
I like to eat godflesh,
I like to die in the shallows.
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Written on July 21, 2021

Submitted by btknutzen2 on May 25, 2022

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:07 min read
1

Quick analysis:

Scheme X AAAAXB AAA XAXCX DBE XBAD BBAB CEX AE BFBX AFA
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,063
Words 225
Stanzas 11
Stanza Lengths 1, 6, 3, 5, 3, 4, 4, 3, 2, 4, 3

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    "The Shallows" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/129445/the-shallows>.

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