A poem written in free verse. Semi-autobiographical except for the suicide by drowning part. The end alludes to Dante's Canto XIII.

The Black-Glass Sea


Birthed on this earth I could not properly breathe.
Though gill-less I should have stayed a silent shell
Inside that Sea.

In youthful years, alone, I visited salt-less liquid
On the shores on my own fleshy vambrace with pores for grains–
With silver tools cracking the ice, crushing blue stagnant snakes–
I swam in vital pools hued blind-bard’s dawn
That ran as vermillion veins.

In older years I mocked my cord that hooked my stomach
And stole me from that Sea:
I hooked my head inside a precious-pit
That swallowed me to sleep–
I dreamed I saw that Sea!
In dread I emerged from the mouth
And picked myself like strange-fruit from absent branches
As though I were like a tree.

In my last years, still young, I had wept enough
To drown the sea.
With stone-pockets and cannonball-ankles
I swam some depths
In hopes to find the Black-Glass Sea...

Then I awoke a talking tree.
Wicked birds like women with putrid plumes
Perched on my lacerated limbs
And pecked my bark that clung as new flesh
Draining my sanguine-sap.
Bitches barked, talons tore,
And still I groaned
For the Black-Glass Sea.