An Alien Explores the Ocean

Flesh passes beneath me
in a slither of something
while a shed skin floats by
and the ocean floor

is one great sideways creep
of creatures as yet unnamed.
My nerves tremble like a junkie's.
My imagination is under threat.

A slimy thing slides
through my fingers.
An eye with a shell
burrows into sand.

I swim through castles
made from the bones
of the dead.
Tiny heads poke out,

their sheen from
an alien rainbow.
Then something large
passes overhead.

It's the color of a raincloud
but its mouth is wide
and it bares more teeth
than I have limbs.

Luckily, it swims away,
as fearful of me
as I am of it.
I've seen enough for today.

Time to surface,
slip on a helmet,
clamp down
on my breathing tube.