Sooner or later, drunk or sober....

the men are quiet tonight
low talk in dark places
a day of days
their most sacred moment
a new hero born
the truest kind of hero
one none can envy

off the coast from here
at night
on a swell-whipped sea
in a current you couldn’t swim against
over a reef famous for its sharks
on a fishing boat
while pulling up a writhing net
of soulless silver fish
young john palmer
went over the side

they couldn’t find him
he was gone
into the dark
on or under
nobody would say
but everybody
assumed

he yelled until it almost drowned him
he has not said that
but we know it’s true

and then he stripped
his clothes off
turned his back
on the unreachable boat
and swam

all night swimming
with his mind
with the cold
and quiet
and darkness

with the keepers of fishermen’s karma
sharks
who, on this coast
eat seals
by attacking them
from beneath
shaking and tearing
dismembering to bite size
to chunks

sometimes the seals
scream

then, at the end of that
young john palmer
to make the shore
came in over
snapper rock
where only the most name-desperate
of surfers
fuck around
with those pounding percussions
of cruel momentum

when they found
young john palmer
he was so still
they thought him dead

so why a hero
this mere act of survival?

sooner or later
drunk or sober
young john palmer

will sleep