One Theory of Ambition

Monday, July 15, 2013
There’s a patch of plastic trapped
inside the Pacific’s
Northern Gyre where inward
spirals of weather stabilize
water, ensnare its mass
of polymers degrading
into particle. It can’t
be seen by satellite but must
be mapped by mantra
tows and boobies’
stomachs: haruspic signs
of its existence scried
like scraps of ship
or meteorite. Our ambition
was to reach the stars.
But why the stars which are
so distant, abstract
beside an ocean’s flux
of grilse in shades of wine?
We have our fame.
It travels in the skins
of jellyfish, decoding up
through bluefin, shark.
Awash within our every vein
like confetti drifting in the dark.
Monday, July 1, 2013