open water

how do you tell someone who is enslaved, of life beyond their chains?
can you convince a freed man to remove his shackles, when they're all he's ever worn?
is it wrong to expect a captive to embrace freedom?

i walk ocean shores, picking up
skeletons on the way, searching for
corpses not yet dead.
i want to send shells back to the
body beside them.
love is my cause
freedom is my mission.
i watch the ocean's fingers grasp for more beings.
the atlantic is hungry. she yearns, with me, to
bring them home.

dusty red against a sandy background.
i pick her up carefully,
expectant.
i whisper
"breathe".
lifeless and immobile, the being inside is no longer
alive.
had she been trapped on the ocean's edge?
if i had been here before her death, i would have told her how
near
she was.
i would have carried her myself and
baptized
her in
immortal waters.
her whitewashed shell is a clever facade.
but she is dead, and i am too late.