GRACE EPSTEIN

extremophile
a tritina 

It’s a particular kind of tension,
the headache oxygen deprivation brings. Spots of blue
before the eyes, like the water – blue now, black by the end of the dive.

Recklessness is all that could bring on a dive
this deep, held back by surface tension
which must be punctured with force, tearing open the blue

world below. That world mirrors the sky above – blue
and then black, at the end. The deepest dive
ever taken was 214 meters. Imagine the tension

of the crowd, tension that broke when the adventurer’s head
broke the blue surface of the water, a part of him still stuck in the dive.