The Sky Behind, The Graves Below

A Poem

For weeks in Mexico, I dream.

A regretful bear stops to tell me - “I am sorry I eat all these people with hopes and dreams”. The sky behind, the graves below.

I fish for a Kraken. I watch the men off shore haul up arms the size of buildings. My rod and my bait are wholly inaccurate for the task in this post apocalyptic universe. The sky behind, the graves below.

A jaguar lays in leaves cut green by rain and the yellowing humidity of the jungle. His eyes are large and coated over with the lacquer of the forest and his own ease. The sky behind, the graves below.

A black great white, caught with a black widow bait and poison stilled for a moment on the deck begins waving its salt crusted body like watching nebulas tremor away life in some abandoned corner of space. The men around watch the shark take backwards flight off the prow. A widow crawls along my back. The sky behind, the graves below.

Four weeks in Mexico and I dream each night of predators — above that indigenous grave in the house with Spanish tilings where the silence echoes itself outwards like the force of gravity pressing on still bodies. The sky behind, the graves below.