Oceanography in the Passenger Seat

By Daniel Park

I. descent 

If I could, I’d pick out the prickling nerves, raw and on edge, from underneath my skin with a fishhook  

give myself a heart attack and a half,  

(for from dust I once came  

and to mud I shall return)  

cast my line, drop it overboard into  

a dark navy static screen outside the car window, smoky lavender, dusky like the wine-flush dark sea.  

Rid myself of the liquid unease that  

ever courses through my skittish rabbit-heart.  

(and from dust I once came  

and to mud I shall return)  

Swallow me whole and bury my bones  

in the silty, saline oceanic undertow  

(where from dust I once came  

and to mud I shall return)  

Somewhere out there I hope  

my thoughts will find repose within a lullaby,   

the ebb and flow of the moon-begotten tides. 

II. (de)composition 

For some slumberous time, salt fills my marrow  

Osmosis is potent  

and desiccatory  

Asparagine green  

and cyanide navy  

The calcium in my skeleton will engineer  

alabaster arches and carbonate cathedrals   

for the lost and weary fish  

who, perhaps, in their next lives,   

will also toss their restless dreams overboard through car windows,  drawn to the deluge their souls sought to escape.  

I am but bait for the creatures of the deep,  

hooked on a lust for gentle sleep,  

and from dust I once came  

and to mud I shall return. 

III. disinter 

But soon enough,   

The glares of sodium-yellow streetlamps buoy me afloat, awake once more,  

reeled back into my half-dissolved body  

with its prickling nerves, raw and on edge  

with its stammering rabbit-heart  

under the dark navy static screen, outside the car window under the dusky sky.   

The only artifact of my travels is a tender sting  

where a fishhook once tethered me to the sedative seafloor, mirrored by the seatbelt that  

digs into my shoulders.  

I can only hope that  

the fish await my nightly return  

as much as I do,  

for from dust I once came  

and to mud I shall return.