Upon the Atoll

The pilot did not sink into the ocean.
The pilot landed on an island.

Somewhere

No more radio broadcasts,
Hunger is too stong.
Beads of curse words,
In a string of prayers.

Water is knee high in the air-craft

Dark brown, and tan engulfed in a blue reflective world.

We know the bones are the size of a female
Of white European origin

The objects are the kind that a woman would
Take with her on a long trip,
Hair tonic and body lotion,
a notebook filled with cursive
a curious lack of stockings.

A trouser button,
a broken zipper.

No more transmissions,
Voice is cracking.

Prayers are quiet,

The night is colder in the open ocean,
There is no dew.

The balding moon, waxes on the horizon.

Panic fades with the day, sleep comes briefly
Shattered before dawn.

The pilot cries to herself a while in the dark before sunrise
With her last ounce of strength.
She drags herself to the shallowest part of the reef,

And removes the last of her last garments, sinking onto the coral,
eyes wide open.

The navigator is gone,
he swam away,
panicking into the blue,
fully clothed.

The pilot lies,
nude and alone in the fading darkness of the pacific dawn,
eyes wide open.

Sinking onto the coral, waiting for the rays of the sun cracking now on the horizon, to come to her shivering body, drying the tears, bringing heat as the
Cold disperses her naked body on a bed of horizon, absorbing the sun.

No thoughts.
No pain.
No regrets.
Only waiting to draw the last breath
With her eyes wide open
upon the atoll.