Maybe because I wasn’t enough of a water being,
too wordy for water,
the turtle pulled me to the other end of the river.
My mind returned to flesh. I was human, after all,
unable to become a fish, and flow.
I was unable to consist entirely of myself.

With increasing speed, and seized by the water’s muffled noise…

When the turtle abandoned me, it was too late to decide.

The water reached the sea.

IV. SEA

The Explorer’s ‘Youthful’ Wonderments

Swordfish

How could I guess what would happen in the sea? In the distance,
a swordfish appeared. Before I grasped what was happening,
a swordfish cut me. Thrust its sword
into the left side of my body
from one end to the other.

It plunged its sharpest point into my spine, extracted, with its teeth,
a vertebra. Pulled my bone out, tossed it
into the muddled seaweed. Lodged a piece of silver—
hidden in its mouth—into the space in my spine.

The wound resides in the center of my body.
Never to heal.
The sword, the sea’s sharpest point
scarred my spine.
Time’s bitter salt…
The stain of the swordfish nests in the center of my body.

Ever since the silver entered my spine,
nothing is the same.
For, a knowledge lies within silver.
Like the silvery knowledge contained in every wound.

Before the swordfish left, of course,
it told me silver’s secret:

I have placed the knowledge of silver inside you.
Now, white metal dwells in your skeleton.
The testimony collected by humanity throughout history
secretes into your flesh.
You will understand everything.
Will hear those who speak and those who don’t speak.

You are now poor like silver, wise as silver.

From now on, a grief disproportionate with your face lives inside you!

I could have placed bronze in you.
Nothing could have bent or contorted you.
But then, you wouldn’t understand those who are bent or contorted.

There was also gold in my mouth.
I could have lodged that lump of gold inside your body.
You would have been the present time’s most precious thing.
But then you wouldn’t know worthlessness.
You’d get carried away by the present’s applause.

Perhaps you wouldn’t have refused a diamond, either.
But then, you’d cut everything you touched.
You wouldn’t know what it’s like to be cut, to feel pain.

Iron could have lodged between your vertebrae, too.
Perhaps you’d be stronger.
But with an iron skeleton,
you couldn’t speak of the crushed.

Should I, by chance, have mixed a bit of steel in with the alloy
of your spine?
With steel’s history of shameless conquests,
you’d be more conquering.
But then, you couldn’t utter the slightest word
about the history of the conquered.