To friends made far from home, from anyone’s home
If literature taught me anything
it was not to make friends at sea.
And yet, on deck, it was precisely
my instinct to embrace you, voluminous
stranger away from your home port
in which, when we docked, you would
again become cramped and brittle.
Servile thing one is to one’s place
and people, to one’s weather and
inhospitable devices. Here on my
homepage, I am limited to myself.
Of course, at sea, a man will string you
right round with your own pearls and
an urchin will hop aboard wearing
a shell for a helmet, calling your name
as clear a bell as in the bird’s whistle,
are you alright, love? Love, salt-spray
stiff along the hem of my togs, I was
always saying sorry, sorry, sorry to
myself, I didn’t mean to get in
quite so deep.