Ahead, leaving you behind,
the Israelites glow like birthstone scales,
rippling on black flesh-wings.
Blind creatures twist in your periphery,
inverted like a nervous system.
Your chariots tangle seaweed.
Your torch-bearers blaze azure fire
through anemone fields.
You are gold wasps or black-sea scarabs;
jewels crystal-trawling the deepest deep.
You and your glittering brothers,
here until the end of days—beyond that—
until you become black-red shrines
to strange, watery gods.
Extinct pilgrims will find you
and bless you.
