The Porthole

6.18.06

Sometimes the air smells

like the sea

as it sucks in through an open porthole.

But closed, the round window

with airtight locks and double thick glass

keeps water out

and dreams within.

The boat glides silently through waves

while the green milky way scrounges around the glass edge,

bubbling furiously as it tries to get in.

What if the clasp broke

and the ocean swept inside the tiny ship?

Would sleeping forms be swallowed whole

by the eternal blue-black watery night?

Or would they,

like long armed jelly fish,

gather tentacles around themselves

and,

sucking in the vast pond, then

propel themselves to the surface?