if you find one happiness
like the barrel on your head
loaded with a pocket of air for you to breathe

then you know that if you sink
to atmospheric tides
you must find fresher barrels
when the novelty declines
and the oxygen gives way
to the oceanic brine

for the last moments of time
you’re chin-up on a water bed
the water cradles your esophagus
and then you find you surely must
find some fresher air to breathe

but to search is to be dissatisfied
to question once is to imply
that everything can be replied
with answers and with truth

that bucket on your head
running out of salty air
to stay is to slip into death
like listening to the ocean in a seashell
till slow blood flows in too few waves

but could you not also swim?
abandon the comfortable end
for the off chance that some underwater shelter
will serve you shots of oxygen?

the funny thing you find
when you let dying pleasure go
and you’re suspended, all alone
the gas trapped beneath
was too stale for you to breathe
but enough to buoy the unburdened barrel
into swiftly surfacing