Always a pregnant shark. I stripped naked,
lurched — and fell into swiftness of her dream

down the dark column until brine chanted
night eyes transformed from iridescent gleam

to the dull brown set in my skull’s ruins.
I come back from the night sea no wiser.

Why the gods single out us twitchy ones
to be their voice I don’t know. With tincture,

with balm, with sauce, the pregnant one, ghost shark,
finds me. But her words don’t translate this side

of tide-water. I flow through crushing dark
without dogma. It’s just womb, moon and tide

without the need for priest, pride or shaman,
without the need for anything human.