I should have been jealous,
watching him writhe.
My ears may be stuffed
with beeswax but my eyes
are clear. And weeping
at the soundless sight.

That madness dance
my captain danced bent
in ways the torso shouldn’t.
I’m not meant for worldly secrets,
to tell the truth I’d almost
rather have stayed a swine.

Because the ways his eyes
fogged and his arms elongated
while all around me the hum
of silence? Even the rhythm
I felt under his feet rattling
the deck was enough to drive me mad.

So no, don’t speak to me now down 
here about jealousy. Or about
craving the sounds of the living.
I was glad to sink where even
the noise is gray, and there is 
no thrumming ecstasy to tempt.

[Amelia Gorman lives in Eureka where she spends her free time exploring tidepools and redwoods with her dogs and foster dogs. Her fiction has appeared in Nightscript 6 and Cellar Door from Dark Peninsula Press. You can read some of her poetry in Vastarien, Utopia Science Fiction, and Strange Horizons. She has two Elgin winning chapbooks, Field Guide to Invasive Species of Minnesota (Interstellar Flight Press) and The Worm Sonnets (Quarter Press).]