Praya Dubia
by Joseph Dante
after the longest deep-sea invertebrate, with a line from Jack Spicer
if you should find your selves in the caveless dark where thoughts weigh heavy as bone where
prayer replaces oxygen follow the wisps
of our beaded philosophy: believe in the strings
that pull you along no puppeteer
save for the bell that keeps the hunger
we are the stage and the roaming spotlights
we are only divided by the ghosts
we haunt and believe in the search
for the clasp unbreakable that will unite
all the spaces between us ending all
ends a ring of us
always into always goblin-shark
bottom-feeders with only wreckage in their hearts
will nurse on our poison as we celebrate
our last idea of night we dream downward
barbed lights pricking the dark corona crown
telling us to hurry our strung- along sons
things do not connect they correspond is the lantern refrain and torch carried furthest
from home maybe it is strange
to think of the soul in segments
when you try to contain us in your deep
you take us for simple synecdoche:
bracelet for body city for soul you know
it is only in pieces you build
the quilt and flag of your era
follow the wisps remember that pull
in your freest moments believe in the strings
the tangles of learning how to swim
in the dreams of drowning in our bodies
in our desire for union without
ceremonial gasping no one escapes
the curtain fall why surface- break at the end
of the world when you can braid nerve
and chemical to all your beginnings
Joseph Dante is an MFA candidate at Florida Atlantic University. His work has been published in Permafrost, South Florida Poetry Journal, PANK, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. He lives in Plantation, Florida with his husband and three cats.
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