There are Rivers Underneath the Sea

Everything begins like this: with a shipwreck;

one body rent against another, 

salt and silt,

waves lapping at the crest of another world. 

Howling. 

What we aren’t told is that there are rivers 

underneath the sea;

        that the world’s largest waterfall 

plunges

three 

and 

a 

half 

kilometres 

through 

the waters 

between 

Ísland and Kalaallit Nunaat 

and that the Bosphorus flows both ways, 

one atop 

the other, 

          like a problem in math class:

a ball thrown west 

on a train moving east, and so on.

There are many such mysteries

and we come to them slow, and suspicious 

How, for example, can you tear

someone apart 

without it floating between you,

     an iceberg, 

      unmelting

or: what makes the undersea rivers flow,

avalanching 

through valleys and canyons 

into the abysmal plain,

         then go still

for months, or years at a time.

or: where does all the water go?