dark/cold/silent until the submerged
vessel/submersible grinds its way
with its own ethic/light and the eel/fish/
snail/dog floats in search of food
in its own water its own dark/cold
swimming deep as deep as the sub
has sunk in search of something
to catalog/write/study/announce/name
in the name of science with God's
backing who commissioned
the naming of all earth's creatures
and so the work continues—a new
species never before subject
to the flashbulbs, its white
translucence necessary
for surviving in the depths
of the Mariana Trench
along the inner slope where
plankton and other food float
into the snail-fish mouth, waved
in by wing-like fins, steered mouth-ward
by the eel-like tail day in and out
where no day is marked with light
or its absence, the existence
is a new discovery for the fish
explorer of the ocean bottom
in deep/dark/cold/blackwater
where the adapted snailfish/eeldog
surviving lightless floating for food
is lost to hubris with no other
survival mode—the naming
changes everything—recognizing
life that has been—protected
by molecules now dependent
on a name which is why someone
took the time to write it down.
Originally from Kansas, Anne Graue lives, writes, and teaches online from her home in New York's Hudson Valley. Her poems have appeared in Compass Rose, Ginosko Literary Journal, The New Verse News, and The 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly.