Suspended Animation

I’m still here patiently waiting beneath last year’s sea ice
treading water, pushing Greenland sharks away with my left foot
you would think I would be thinking about oxygen, aqualungs
holes in the ice with a lean polar bear perched to pounce
I admit that used to worry me

now I’m suspended between Edvard Munch and a midnight sun
between M.C. Escher and bioluminescent dinoflagellates
drawing nourishment from glacier water and art school critiques
wondering if triangular canvases mimic the act of sex
between two consenting sources of light

I’ve learned to use narwhal tusks as writing and drawing implements
fastidiously mimicking the scars on the flanks of sea creatures
waving my arms like a child’s top, splashing cuttlefish calligraphy
on the unsuspecting undersides of connubial water craft
waiting for someone to call me home, telling me it is now safe

the appointment book now a clot of salt-damaged paper and ink
social media is a dream from the past, dial-up a comic’s punchline
postcards, letters, text messages, I’ll even try new-age psychic beams
an octopus with three hearts and a relatively short lifespan
until eventually, just floating like flotsam, unrecognizable

[RK, 9/17/23]