IN THE DEEPEST TRENCH

by Anne Graue

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. 

A WHALE IN THE MINES

by Mary Sexson

How often do whales clean their ears? Well, never. And so, year after year, their ear wax builds up, layer upon layer. According to a study published Monday, these columns of ear wax contain a record of chemical pollution in the oceans. --NPR, Sept. 16, 2013

An exquisite thought,
the whale as the canary
in earth’s liquid mines, its
ear wax the testament to their lives,
to our foolishness.  It reads like
a book, the layered spikes
of fibrous rings pages that reveal
the oceans they traveled,
the depths they plumbed.
The mercury showed up,
and the DDT, the garbage
we dumped into their waters
as they passed beneath us,
these leviathans of the world,
silent singers, filtering
the darkness, listening
with ears we did not know they had.


Mary Sexson is the author of the book 103 in the Light, Selected Poems 1996-2000 (Restoration Press, 2004), and co-author of the recently released Company of Women:  New and Selected Poems (Chatter House Press, 2013, with Jayne Marek and Lylanne Musselman).  Her work has been included in projects such as Arts Kaleidoscope and Poetry in Paint.  Her poems have appeared in various literary publications, including Flying Island, Tipton Poetry Journal, and Grasslands Review.  Her newer work has been published in several anthologies, including The Globetrotter’s Companion (Lion Lounge Press, London), Trip of a Lifetime (Sleeping Cat Books), and A Few Good Words (Cincinnati Writer’s Project).  She has forthcoming work in the Reckless Writing Anthology (Chatter House Press, November 2013).