Measuring or obscuring depth

People's depths are so often hidden... audio version here.

Bathymetry

You are the shifting peat-water mosaic,
the ripples
with bright-white reflections,
the iridescent swirls of petrol,
the severed ROV umbilicus,

you are the anechoic tiles
baffling to sonar,
the rope, knotted at intervals
and lost overboard,

the sepia squirt
of a retreating cephalopod,

you are crude immersion-oil,
the tattooist’s needle-gun,
the final block of a pyramid
fitting razor-tight,

you are the historical weight
of De Profundis,
the sediments stirred up by my movements,
the shallow angle of incidence,
the attenuation of blue wavelengths,

you are the slow and nourishing
accumulation of snow,
the silhouette of a leviathan,
the spawning of the multitudes,
the roiling baitball,
food for sharks,

you are the vent’s hot outpouring,
the well-cover, hungry for offerings,
the last thoughts of a sailor
dashed upon sharp rocks,
still dreaming of mermaids,

you are positive vetting
in a negative world,
the trapdoor to an oubliette,
the anchor snagged on coral,
dragging harm behind,

you are the printer’s forgotten thumb-print,
the falling storm-split spar,
the pitch-soaked bandage,
the gyroscope frozen in space,

you are the cataract,
eutrophication,
leaf-litter,
old horizons –
you are surface tension.