Poem of the Week and a Half

The Great Submarine Race
by Matthew Rohrer

It’s mad, but it just might work,
he said, and floridly signed his name
to The Great Submarine Race.

Submarines slumbered in his bloodstream
and submarines burbled in shallow slips.
The Flying Electrons bore the news
around the world on cold white drafts
and the news pierced the blue clouds.

A man in the square nudged his wife
and told her they were Mammary clouds.
Everyone’s transmitter cackled.
Everyone’s bloodstreams burbled
faintly.

The wife loved the lumpy clouds.
The man’s submarine slipped its mooring
and nosed her coral arches.
Simultaneously, all the world’s submarines exhaled
and plunged deep into the shifting water
with their little engines racing,
and when they met each other they battered one another’s hearts.