I choose to go down with the boat
and grip tight the rails—
and the blue water widens its mouth
and swallows the ship, pulls it deeper, deeper in,
but I can’t make my body stay down,
and I float, unwillingly, to the surface.
I wake, spluttering, resentful—
this is not how it was supposed to end—
though the ship was doomed,
I was supposed to stay.
But the sunlight has other plans
for me. All day, I wring
salt water from my hair.
All day the world calls to me
like a crow, start again,
start again, start again