An erasure of Chapter 69 of Moby-Dick

The body
flashes Slowly
insatiate rapacious

floats further and further
floats murderous
for hours and hours

pleasant joyous
death floats infinite
mocking mourning

life needed it
this desecrated body
nevertheless floating

straightaway the corpse
with trembling fingers
leaping over a vacuum

There’s your law
there’s your orthodoxy!
Thus the great terror

death a world
you my friend?
There ghosts them.

Troy Kehm-Goins is a Puyallup poet and artist who has been published in WRIST, Post Defiance, Read Write Poem, and Les Sar’zine. His work is a mixture of the everyday and the mythological, drawing upon diverse influences and inspirations. He has also self-published four poetry chapbooks, the most recent of which is Black Psalms. He resides online at Troy’s Work Table (www.troysworktable.blogspot.com) where he explores books, art, beer, and wandering.