No Return — a poem
a tribute to the lost souls of the USS Indianapolis, lost at sea
Suspended, rafts drift with blood and oil they spread on their gaping faces. Dorsal fins flashing, stirring like soup spoons.
Death waits below, saucer-eyed, evolved. Dog tags slink down the esophagus of the sea, silver coins shimmer then vanish. Faces toward Son, they that remain uneaten claw themselves, beg to be found.
I am here, settled into couch you, laid out beside me, your head in my lap. You look up at me, flash a silver smile. Your irises, soft shifting blues, a hungry mercury sea drawing me in… I slip from raft, soldier to mermaid, surface to thermocline.
Note: The USS Indianapolis sunk in the last campaign of WW II, on July 30, 1945, just two weeks before the end of the war, when it was torpedoed by Japanese submarine I-58 Many men lost their lives in the two days they spent adrift. Only 316 men of the 1199 were rescued on August 2, 1945 when they were spotted by a patrol aircraft. This poem was inspired by the plight and suffering of these soldiers.