Deep Sea Dantesca

They’ll tell you how they live without the one
thing you thought necessary for all life.
They huddle at their hearthfires and complain.

They miss the break of dawn. Some are bored stiff.
The water neither boils nor turns to ice.
Their children shake their heads in disbelief

at hearing how they learned to bear the press
of the dark element a little more
each day until they felt no emptiness.

For day, to those born here, is just old lore.
More constant fire is hedged in by the dark.
They can’t imagine any other star.

The old ones sometimes dream of atmospheric
light in tide pools, sea anemones,
how drifting on the current felt euphoric—

but they themselves would never tell you this.
They’d tell you that they’re safer where they are.
They’d talk about the fickleness of skies.

Copyright © 2006 Carol Quinn All rights reserved
from The National Poetry Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission