The morning after the election when my lungs refused

to inflate,

 

I saw that I was phosphorescing like a jellyfish, a pulsing

blob of white in a sea of diffuse uncertainty in which

the slenderest slivers of light above the seething calm

were inked out as thousands expelled jets of black

and brown to cloak their shape and confuse the

hunter enticed to these waters by the need to

feed on disparity, to seize and devour even

the shadows to which the tremulous flee

and pray for protection that might not

come in time if it comes at all.

 

Within the murk now thick with dread, the murmuration

of innocents becomes a mass for the dead, a lament

weary of sundered assurances and hope’s demise,

and well below where worm-scarred timbers lie

amid bones of other others lost or tossed to the

deep and long since adapted to the lack of air,

wide dark eyes mark the flailing above and

unhinged jaws form a soundless sigh of

empathy ascending, for they know

the price of difference will

always be paid.

© Dana Hughes 11.24.16