like the book about the white-gods
searching for movement
thinning in winter
off a boat in the arctic
your own line failing
you must have been wearing metal
to go down so quickly
or did the ropes go slack suddenly
when you pulled
in fur-padded soundless steps, even bears
feed through dark days
some years lose their last layer
groping for something warm
under seas of velvet blackness
drift down in arctic night
sometimes oxygen is an ice shelf
and blood turns heavy as flesh
no use to say it now
in numbing waters
even words lose their way