Whale Falls are the Hottest Restaurants of the Deep Sea

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            I saw a video of a whale’s bones underwater,

                        picked dry by every osedax

     that could congregate inside a

                        skeleton and learned whales

don’t just beach themselves—

            body to coast, eyes more prismatic

     than stained glass, mouth agape to say

                        devour me—

                                    they fall to ocean floors. It takes a century

                           to decompose, and a whale’s body spends that time

                as a habitat for other life.                

                        If I could grow gills/develop a taste

              for the cold/handle pressure/keep my mouth shut

                          long enough to stop treading water,

       I’d bring a shovel down to the carcass,

                        beat off every scavenger, become a sentry,

             eat what consumes because there are 

                                    too many metaphors for bodies giving.

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