Underwater

Under water,
it’s hard to see.

Cold blue is cupped
against your hands.
Evasive currents
roll like slow blood
to a sleeping heart.

Here’s a thought: moon-jellies
don’t have brains. Think of that
the next time you drift through an aquarium
and see creatures glowing from the dark.

Webs of electric blue loops
and orange-pink ruffles
remind you of old, multicolor
medical charts mapping veins and arteries.
This knowledge was studied
from behind glasses, probably.

Now they lean together, all scrolled up
in dingy antique shops,
jostled among maps of
the world circa moon-landings,
across from a broken, blue-eyed doll
and many bakelite implements
with chromium dials.

Or clear your head again.
These blurs in the far reaches of memory:
are they sea jellies pulsing away
or light falling toward you
from eons ago,
now thin and flat
and warbling in a telescope?

Turn to the side slowly,
breath held.
Reach, to break the surface.