Bring it up from the dark, bring it all up,
and wands of phosphorescent light,
all that is waterlogged, heavy with its own
unbearable weight, all that is strange,
malformed, lying in shadow—that
crawls and humps and drags itself
along the muddy bottom, making
guttural sounds no human can imagine.
Haul it up into the light as the rusted
pulleys and frayed ropes creak and groan
with their burden—crates of skulls, broken
cars and bodies, sacks of stones, their
horrible tonnage, the lost and discarded, all
that we would rather forget: our angers
and fears, the lives we betrayed, the souls
we abandoned while we looked after
our own comfort and gain. Let’s see them all,
here in the open, unbound and pulsing
with that which was never extinguished,
which survives even death itself, brave
flicker at the black gate of our oblivion.
(2013)
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