June 13, 2024Saving For Sleep
Night’s pitch-rolled on a deck of blight,
and hands, they call, all hands aboard.
Here’s the rigging of a dream—
you, and you, and a naked girl
before a throne of apples, gardens. A sway
in the sail—here we are, the boat
of my room, the belly, the bone stern
and prow. These gulls above me, heading south.
Oysters play cuckold to the beams,
pitch fostered to every knot and seam. The give-out-give-in
of cider press, the bellows honking incessantly.
Listen, I will make you a fisher
of men, if you follow me. The lines play out;
your hammy fist, rib-cage
catching the butt-end and bruised, the full
body of you above, swaying in earnest,
the rip-tide yanking down, the silver
scanting of your prey. I say the good hang on
long past their useful days.
Here’s the dive, the dark-skinned boys of sleep
with fistfuls of pearl, with fistfuls of deep, deep.
Now say this is my body and mean it.
Not the dark room and sailors, not a platter
of maggot and bread. Just an arm, here,
a figurehead, and you on the deck,
hauling in your catch.
from #22 - Winter 2004