Down, Down

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DOWN, DOWN


Let's toss aside our fishy preoccupation

with historicity. Let’s say they sunk him


into text to type our slow descent

to self, into an empty belly intent


for Tarshish, which is a fancy way to say 

really far away. His then is our slow 


awakening that these, our lodgings, 

are something less than satisfactory. 


His our stomach-turn as such a place

proves topsy-turvy in a tempest.


His too our coming-to that no, we’re not 

climbing out of this, that out 


means down and down means

jostled round the callused tongue


of an immensity hungry to help us

figure out ourselves, to help us 


out ourselves into a meet figuring 

that the only self with meat is the eaten one.


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