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57 Hart, Weldon, John, and Me Hart Crane off the stern of the Orizaba and into the watercolor-blue Caribbean: fish food. Weldon Kees parks his car, walks the Golden Gate above the bay chop to his last step: fish food. John Berryman accelerating off Washington Avenue Bridge to smack the Minneapolis ice: not fish food. Then there’s me—me, who wasn’t supposed to leave her amniotic ocean alive—and I’m nineteen, thirty-five, even, and twenty meters down in the most dense blue fog. I’ve glided with pilot whales, looked into the maw of whale sharks, skirted hammerhead schools. The regulator’s in my mouth and I’m smiling, laughing at the doctors, bosses, the angry young dope I was. My wetsuit’s tight on my wrists, and no one even notices the faint lines there these years. Here’s a gloved finger to Darwin and all the gods. I’m breathing underwater, boys. I’m breathing, and as I surface slowly—slowly so nitrogen bubbles in my blood don’t expand faster than my hope—I salute you, 58 Hart. Here’s to you, Weldon, and Johnny, too. I love the ascent’s last four feet. The noise of equalization in your ears as pressure backs off is to die for. ...

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