Down, Down

Let’s toss aside our fishy preoccupation
with historicity. Let’s say they sunk him

into text to type our slow descent
to self, into an empty belly intent

for Tarshish, which is a fancy way to say
really far away. His then is our slow

awakening that these, our lodgings,
are something less than satisfactory.

His the sinking realization that such a place
proves topsy-turvy in a tempest.

His too our coming-to that no, we’re not
climbing out of this, that out

means down and down means
jostled round the callused tongue

of an immensity hungry to help us
figure out ourselves, to help us

out ourselves into a meet figuring
that the only self with meat is the eaten one.