Tell it not
how you are
or how you act
around company.
Just tell
where we lie
and how we eat
within submarines.
Strawberries can float
down there, she says
as I grin from ear to ear.
We hadn’t known that until
one summer night underwater
with our best friends in tow.
Pressurized peers popped their ears
to the deafening steely screech
and scratched at their eyelids
with jagged bitten nails
reserved for panic attacks.
But look, in the distance,
a perfect ripe strawberry
floating innocent, supple, sublime
through the hull to the bridge
[where Diego swallowed it whole].
This memory is not as fond of us
as we think it ought to be–
but we always persevere
and find better friends.
WHARVED 