Sooner or later we all end up
in the belly of the whale.
Sooner, it seems, and we will find
our own bones broken, in cavernous gut,
as though we had always been breaking
down in our watery gaol.
Sooner or later, the lion’s jaw
will close around our skin.
And there, in that terrible silence,
the world will come rushing in.
There in that silence, unable to speak,
all the moments undone will crowd at our ears,
and the silence will hold us, safe and soundless,
in the grip of two-inch teeth.
Sooner or later, the flood will
lift us all away.