Thomas Winfield Marie Nuhfer | Deep Scattering Layer

Deep Scattering Layer

Thomas Winfield Marie Nuhfer

our support group meets on Zoom and most weeks we talk about insurance raising children making dinner pulling the car over to cry most weeks the group is smaller than it used to be don’t say it we already know we know I know I need to — I know the outcomes are poor — I know it isn’t right — I know Medicaid might not — I know my daughter needs me — I know nobody makes it out of the world alive — I know the numbers — I know you’ve probably already tried — I know — — six thousand million tons of lanternfish like a photoporous blanket are heaving against the false bottom of the world and eating sonar alive I wish I didn’t know anything else I wish we had heard the undulating echo and gasped and reeled in our lines I wish there is no rock bottom past where the deep scattering layer breathes its way to sleep I don’t want to know if it ever gets dark I trust the lanternfish are all I need to see glowing like the earth’s most fireflies maybe there is no abyssopelagic night maybe there are just six billion trillion bottomless tons of lanternfish like coins in a wishing well like whale fall they keep sinking down and down and down and all along the way there’s light.