A Clean Scuba Mask Needs Spit

Happy Birthday. A nebula based on your eye

exploding explodes far above on the surface.
It doesn’t bother the sea life.

The mackerel traffic is smooth, the shark inert.
To them, there’s only one depth,

but many deaths. Are you happy

the opposite’s true for us? The ocean is just
the pressure a grandmother

uses to muffle fireworks, her hand-knit pillows

keep you from saying you must be hungry,
or you are forgiven.

The process relentlessly gentle. Now our silk-screen
T-shirts bleed

dye into the current. Your superhero sheet cake

eases away from us like a coffin in deep space

where cardamom & sugar are sealed in a vacuum,
& every meal is seasoned

by a professional. It’s less that you have chosen

a hostile environment, more that the precautions
needed to visit you

make us marionettes, flight-plan martinets

concerned about lung capacity & how to combat
squid-ink

darkness with indifference. Fuck these trick

invisible tea cups you have us use, our pinkies up.
We know their salt is infinite.