You May Not Get Out of Here Anytime Soon

Shipwrecks seem more ominous
Than memory metaphors.
Their weird durability,

Once they reach the bottom dark,
If they rest proud of the floor,
Sometimes for thousands of years

In the slow world of the low
And lightless, and cold, feels more
Like a warning or token

Of how the past really works,
A midden of infinite
Variation in changing

Rates of change. Filter feeders
Flourish on deck, pale lilies,
Anemones, and crinoids,

While the outline of the hull
Seems never to change at all,
And the endless ocean snow

Of shed organic matter,
Waste and corpses, plastics now,
Falls and is eaten slowly.