Leviathan

The sea rose in a coil, and the coil had scales. A leviathan, a sea serpent, not an arm and not a grab, the old deep body turning under the boat until the horizon bent. People held the rail and forgot the prayer. They came ashore with a leviathan gift of that long turn. It returns in leviathan playing cards that curve in the hand, in a leviathan notebook whose line will not stay straight, in a leviathan postcard of the serpent and the broken water. The boat rights itself. The coil does not.