Dike Divers

I never dived the Dike,
remembering a sea-bagged body
caught in its floating hinge;
but walked it watching
the loud brave bodies sound
the seaweed where
the dug channel churned
like the boil of an unmade mind,
watched and waited
for the ones who didn’t come up
dead and smashed like eels
the fishermen dashed against
the Dike walls. I dreamed leaning
above the curlicued water, dreamed
of going down straight like a lead weight,
down where the hairy seaweed dressed me
and the eels pressed close for curiosity,
dreamed myself clutched half free
of the Dike doors, almost saved
by swift and burly tugging water tides.
And the sun was greater and better
than food when I’d straighten up alive
to the arcs of netted fish, spray raining
up from the diving, and sea winds
looser than water to breathe, balancing
along the Dike again,
feeling the dare float off
like candy wrappers down the channel.