Dave Bonta's short poem turns rising sea levels into a story about money. The land, it says, is charging the sea interest on a debt that keeps growing. That reverses what we might expect: the sea is taking ground, yet the poem frames the land as the one with a claim, as if the loss were an unpaid bill. The word "diminution" sits alone on its line and sounds cold and official, like something from a ledger, while describing the shrinking of the shore.
Then the poem lands on a strange, funny image: oysters in the office. Sea creatures have moved into human workspaces, and the sea calls this a bed, a place to rest and settle. The speaker's tone seems dry and wry rather than panicked. The mood is quietly unsettling, with a little dark humor. Business language keeps trying to make the loss manageable, but the sea simply moves in anyway.