To swallow new names like krill, dive.

You have few tides before you

return to motion. Once this shrine

was the abyssal plain. Once Empire

shackled you. Once you answered

to monster, to dragon, spewing steam, fire

bellowing in the furnace of your hide,

a migrant captured for brown skin’s

labor. Somewhere inside the darkness

where brews flame, a spirit hovers

over the deep. Once before Adam named

you illegal you snaked, breaking

into air. Spit out his poison, jaw-clap

the sea. With your aft-fin’s trailing edge

churn surface to milk. In the beginning,

you were formed with great light.