swimming or flying; it’s exhausting

a lurching struggle to keep on top

to maintain buoyancy, a semblance of direction

How I spend my nights, aloft, in

flapping, plunging, plummeting…

speeding into spirals,

open-mouthed crazed arcs

colliding with telephone poles, tangled

in the wires or

strangled by seaweed, out-distancing

a shark – maybe three, vicious

in pursuit: threatening limbs

that churn, that battle, downward-destined and

ploughing through rubber when there’s sharks

all around, there are sharks

there below

How I spend my nights, afloat, and awake,

spent