When Random Sharks Attack - Ed Coletti

[Larry Robinson]

When Random Sharks Attack

When a frenzy of orange threshers
battle-sharpened yellow teeth ablaze
rushes to take your home
nothing can prepare you for the carnage
Denial an oh so temporary refuge
briefly houses your future plans and hopes
It too is overtaken by voracious marauders
I speak as one consumed 
I dream of a huge red bear
I am empty sad feel worthless
I don’t know what to do be still or fight
Luck had saved me up 'til the present
I’m watching scores of rock doves swoop
these Oakland hills evade the stoop of circling 
red tail hawks eye level with our refuge from
the fire oh that black senses-deadened early morning
blind eyed  rush without a single dorsal fin
to warn or woo while now and here in hills
across the Bay awake to strangeness:
curse of phantom pain we know but still
we want the easy comfort of our house
the sense of going home to what we know
to what we together purchased once we married
I seek a new thesaurus to explain things
Here in space where furniture doesn’t fit me
in and out of my body feeling freaky
If it’s true that attachment equaled suffering
I’ve been shoved on to the road of enlightenment
all too quickly here in a region known as Purgatory
atoning for my sin of routine comfort

We almost died
We did not die
We lost a house
And all possessions
Much more remains
In the rubble of our pain
The innocence of sharks 
          very much maligned

	- Ed Coletti