Submarine Poem by Patti Masterman

I bathe in the cold breeze
like a dowager bathes in milk-
Not to look better,
No; I only want to store up the chill
for summer days
when ice melts.

Like glaciers fall into the sea,
And polar bears fall through once hard pools.

When the heat shimmers
like a thousand foot mirage,
like the black tar beckoning death
to the thirsty animals, fainting in the afternoon-

And only then do I dream of submarines
Sinking down in the depths
In the Marianas trench.