Gulf
Jonathan Fletcher

As if you could order around
over 600,000 square miles of ocean,
you rename a body
of water that was here 300 million years before,
will still be here long after.
You are not the first.
I doubt you’ll be the last.
Vespucci, de Vaca--
sharks them all!—aboard ships
with lateens that pierced sky
like fins poking through rippling sheen.
Stand where boots
stamped dark sediment, laid claim
to sand and salt,
turned water the color of wine.
Feel the coolness
of what will outlast you.
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