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Anaerobe

Anaerobe

By Richard Kenney b. 1948 Richard Kenney

Touch swollen tonsils:

gill slits.

Inside eyelid: slimelight.

Cheek: shark.

Here foreknown

I’ve dived

down dawnless

microbial snows,

phosphor blue to blue-

black, to black.

I fend

fish. I find

the saffron curb

of the sulfur vent,

veering voiceless

again into the segmented,

swaying, white,

toothed tube-

worm, Time.

NOTES: Read the Q&A with Richard Kenney about this poem

Source: Poetry (December 2012).

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Poet Richard Kenney b. 1948

POET’S REGION U.S., Northwestern

Subjects Living, Time & Brevity, Nature, Animals, Seas, Rivers, & Streams

Poetic Terms Free Verse