Luciferase

that a spine travels
from here to there
each piece a precisely cut puzzle

is half a promise – that the sea
would speak if I could trust
the tongues of lives the water lost.

maybe the weight of the tide
could lead you here, to blotting dark:
airless, hopeless, senseless

where splinters pierce
a jelly skin, and yet the ghosts
still try to dance.

But an eye without a lid
can’t deny the stinging swarm
of salt and false fire and broken ice

that pricks the holes of open mouths
is indistinguishable
from the water’s ceaseless song

that sailors first learn to keep
heart-close, tucked within, like a bottled ship
with strings since cut

named for a forgotten girl
and they know always that words or not,
the loss and loss and loss

Luciferase

will force a response
from hunger
for the blotting dark