Can’t we swim or even drown
In this boundless dominion?
Can we fly like a giant squid, wings gliding,
Summoned to the call of the benthic wilderness?
And can we grip each other in cephalopod tentacles,
With the purchase of slimy seaweed?
Can we make love like dolphins
Pleasure being our only steer?
Can I be like the dinoflagellates burning their fire cysts
Glow slowly transforming to her afterlife?
Can I bathe you in brine and take the ocean out of you
Through the gauze that is your skin?
Oh look love, how the seabed
Is filled with kaleidoscopic coral,
Sponges, starfish and stone fish
Almost as if there’s another world on the ocean floor.
And look, oh look, how tiny that electric eel is now,
Prowling through the rocks
Waiting for the ocean to be filled back up.
Published by Curiosity-driven life (Dilantha Gunawardana)
Dr Dilantha Gunawardana graduated from the University of Melbourne, as a molecular biologist, and moonlights as a poet. He currently serves as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Botany, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Dilantha lives in a chimeric universe of science and poetry. Dilantha’s poems have been accepted for publication /published in HeartWood Literary Magazine, Canary Literary Magazine, Boston Accent, Forage, Kitaab, Eastlit, American Journal of Poetry, Zingara Poetry Review, The Wagon and Ravens Perch, among others. Dilantha too has two anthologies of poetry, 'Kite Dreams' (2016) and 'Driftwood' (2017), both brought to the readership by Sarasavi Publishers, and is working on his third poetry collection (The Many Constellations of Home). Dilantha’s pet areas of teaching and research, include, Nitrogen Fixation, RNA biology, Phytoremediation, Agricultural Biology, and Bioethics & Biosafety. Dilantha blogs at – https://meandererworld.wordpress.com/ -, where he has nearly 2000 poems.
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