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Capsizing the Costa Concordia

Divers wreathe silently through
the submerged corridors of a 
140,000-ton wreck. Little fish
dark haphazardly through
the juxtaposition of tilted ballroom,
granite bars fixed in place.
Black waters lit green by headlamps
provide a surreal spotlight
for a loveseat drifting by
A vase of Chinese dollar plants poised delicately
on a marble counter.
Across the underwater tomb,
toppled chairs, tumbled together,
wait patiently to be repositioned
outside the dance floor.

There was nothing graceful about the dramatic demise
of this giantess,
listing to her death.
She was fatally wounded, being coaxed 
too closely to the coast.
A hidden reef stood ground to gore
a 70ft gash, portside.
There was the moaning of mangled metal,
the shrieking of splitting steel,
as dark torrents were unleashed into her belly,
extinguishing her light.
“Go back to your cabins!”
and corridors flooded

“Go back to your cabins!”
and pumps failed.
“Captain! The passengers are making their own way to the lifeboats!”
echoes pointlessly through the abandoned bridge.
“Vada a bordo, cazzo!”
The Coast Guard thunders across dark waters
and the captain is stealing into his own lifeboat
to listen from the safety of shore.
Listening to the chaos,
interrupted by the agonized silence of passengers
too terrified to scream.
They hold their breath and try to calm each other
in the absence of authority.
“Vada a bordo, cazzo!”
But it’s dark, he pleads, and I can’t see anything...
A rope ladder is flung over the bow,
drowning passengers slinging, and
crawling crablike to Coast Guard boats
as the ship sinks to her side,
gripping 37 passengers in a horrifying embrace.

Scuba clad stewards of the dead
open the possessive clutch
of an atrium elevator
to extract bodies
protectively closed and sealed
in a grisly pantomime of protection.
The remains of the deceased
are floated to the light
to break the surface one last time.
The Costa Concordia shudders heavily,

sliding into her death repose.
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