I’ve been a diver, too, but the one who stayed 
in the open water, content to track colored fish in the warm currents. 
I’ve been the woman at the entrance of the cave 
watching my sister’s flippers kick into black, breathing 
my steady long breath into the respirator. 
	     						   Overhead, the shadow
of a boat covers us, then releases us into the rays 
of watery sun. 
   	       			    I’m circling 
so as not to lose this entry 
among the coral mounds, the undersea castles. 
I’m her monkfish mothering, half-blind in the mask
that shows me only the tiny details of the closest creatures. 
For example, the bitten fin of this hammerhead. Not the faraway figure 
emerging. Nothing but darkness here at the mouth. 
And the wavering flit of two clownfish as they dart, together 
then apart, into a cluster of anemones.