How much blood is in a human body?

How much life is under this skin and veins?

 Is the surface a moment so gaudy

that, if scrutinized, its secret remains?

Under the armor of light and of sand,

twisted by the azure waves that break them,

remain channels of history unmanned,

lived-in fossils that beg us to take them:

Nations wake from deep corners of the shell

that blares as the black boatman gives a blow;

he ferries patrons to a shallow hell,

though they encounter Paradise below:

Columbus’s rooster must re-emerge

as native Neptune hums his vengeful dirge.