Whelm

 

Whelm

 

On the bridge, taking middle watch,

a lifetime until 4 o clock,

or, more properly -

zero four hundred hours

and how you bought the girl some flowers

without really knowing her address,

just a Plymouth refuge someplace somewhere

for girls born into distress

you’d listened to her yarn,

witnessed the oxides of self-harm

in copper kettled rust.

The Canman had sneered, queried

but took the money nonetheless

and that’s all there is to say, nothing more here.

The ship’s wheel auto-locked

and the light on Eddystone’s rocks

is over the sea and far away;

the steel tracer of the echo sounder’s

stylus plummets depths, writes plays

of all the stories ever staged,

buried beneath the calm seas

on carbon paper, while the Captain nods off.

Then you’re awake, shocked,

in salt pools deep enough to sail

and every time you ever failed

builds waves enough to swamp the ship

you used to think was built so strong,

oh, he’s coming, he comes,

hands across oceans, speaking tongues,

the interred words forced into a keepsake locket

no bigger than a chained heart

that hangs upon St Christopher's neck,

the years of voyage, the ships wrecked,

and sailors who never will forget.