My cold hand clutches the tiller, hip against the long cracked wood,

wondering when it will break. The tides push from below, wind

cupped inside the long sail, pulls from above. We are smaller

than a whale yet larger than a shark, this boat and me.

We have a destination. We have a GPS guiding

me with small electronic arrows.

I guide us, yet I cannot help but notice the sea

on all sides, trying to steer this vessel, this body,

to its own designs.

We exist here because we are allowed.

We are given this gift of water, shrinking us down to a speck.

We are smaller than birds without wings, without their means

of survival. If the sea decides—

it can swallow us.

Pull us down into liquid silence.

Our bodies, crumbled and scattered over reefs,

to be devoured slowly

by alien fish.

If there are gods anywhere on this Earth,

They are not on mountain tops or windswept plains.

They are made of scales and fish bones. They have

tails and gills, and when They cough,

a tsunami destroys a city or two.

If there are gods, They ride blue whales to secret caverns

where everything glows in the dark, where

the fish believe light to exist only within their bodies, lining their blood vessels.

Light is their voice in the darkness, their only form of communication

besides their teeth, ready to devour whatever crosses their path.

If there are gods, They commune

with such creatures, slip past them as liquid shadows, unseen

against the deep dark, grasping their whale

chariots from below.

If there are gods anywhere on this Earth,

They live in the sea.