Just as on the last day the dead will tear themselves
from the earth’ s embrace, and the unburdened ball
soaring behind them drifts into space:
so now these, the living, plunge into the earth,
and the burdened soil sinks to the floor of the world,
into millennial seaweed, where destinies continue
with the mute dull gaze of fishes
their cold encounters. Where from tubes,
as from sea anemones,
wounds bloom profusely, and the current
tries to attach itself to the dreadful pulp
of a groping arm. There, from the pale coral,
lime skeletons of solid living horror
branch in silence.