‘bathyscaphe’ (provisional title)
Slowly, a bathyscaphe begins to sink
into a world where everything is blue,
a gradual darkening from thrush egg through
cornflower, sapphire, gentian and squid ink;
and there in the blackness, indistinct
and fleeting, blobs of light come into view,
drifting across their sight as though the crew
had looked into a candle-flame and blinked.
The lights are being trailed by tunicates,
iridescent things of gauze and whiskers.
At depths no normal submarine could dive –
where water has become so dense and viscous
the hull would cave – they are so delicate
they offer no resistance, and survive.