Seen From A Small Boat

Originally posted 5/27/2012.

Three look over the side of their
soon to be foundered boat,
staring out at the storm, down at the sea:

what’s coming up
from the dark water —
corpse, crab, blue pearl?

The teacher says,  
I spy only the blue pearl,
lustrous mystery rising. 

The practical one
seizes on how the crab, once seized,
seizes back — seizes on deniable pain.

The undertaker says,
my concern is the corpse.
Wash it clean. Swathe it. Sink it.

Which is it?
Maybe there’s nothing
down there 

threatening or promising anything,
just memory
playing with shadow,

trying to claim its place
before the storm
begins to work at drowning.