This is how we used to imagine
the ocean floor: a steady snow of dead
diatoms and forams drifting
higher in the sunken plains, a soggy
dust on the climbing underwater
peaks. But such a weather
would build a parched earth,
a ball of salt. Down the last mountains
above sea level real snow would sift
until it met the rising tide
of salt and the earth was perfect, done.
Now we think of the ocean floor
as several floors, vast plates
grinding against each other as metaphors
grind each other. We say "plates"
as if somewhere the earth
were flat, or we were
faithful to the way our round eyes
flatten the round earth whenever the lack
of a compelling metaphor gives us a chance.
The basins would never fill up
even with our bad ideas.
Information keeps our senses linked.
The fog thins and we can see
more of the air the snow defines,
the snow like a syllabus of starfish.
