Seafloor Butler

The dark, dim, twisting currents

like probing fingers 

pry apart the wreckage

wood boards burst and splinter

and they shy back, startled

vaguely amused.

Shadowy tendrils, like coiling serpents

slink along the sand-bottom 

mud billowing up in inky clouds

to hide their insubstantial forms

creeping slowly, incurious

through the darkened hull.

They nudge away water-logged tablecloths  

pull down paintings that slowly rot

spill treasures that float away

then fall, slowly settling

among the sand and mud

that is their grave.

But their true prize they have found

in the shadowy depths beneath the world

they clean and polish it daily

the bones of the knotted old sailor and his crew...

The Seafloor Butler quietly lays them to rest

in the mud of the ocean floor.