The Breasts of the Sea by Syl Cheney Coker

 After our bloody century, the sea will groan

Under its weight, somewhere between breasts and anus.

Filled with toxins, her belly will not yield new islands 

Even though the children of East Timor wish it so. 

The sea is only capable of so much history :

Noah's monologue, the Middle Passage's cargoes,

Darwin's examination of the turtle's shit,

The remains of the Titanic, and a diver's story

About how the coelacanth was recaptured. 

Anything else is only a fractured chela

We cannot preserve, after the sea's belly

Has washed itself clean of our century's blight.

Throbbing, the sea's breasts will console some exiles,

Even those out of Australia, drifters on a tired moon,

But Sierra Leone won't be worth a raped woman's cry, 

Despite her broken back, this shredded garment, 

Her hands swimming like horrors of red corals. 

But do you, O, sea, long-suffering mistress,

Have the balm to heal the wounds of her children, 

Hand to foot the axe, alluvial river flowing into you?

Copyrights © Syl Cheney Coker

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