FOUR O’CLOCK DEPARTURE

Posted by Admin on 23 July 2006, 12:00 am

A window frames the upper
mid-section of a ship, drafting
her lines, as on graph-paper,
against the wired glass.
A lifeboat, cobra-caught in davits,
hangs abaft the rubefacient
port light’s premature gleam.
Passengers, glazed in, remote
from waterfront agencies, glance
shoreward, encauled in insensitivity.
On deck, mink-coddled against
October sun-lack, you watch
for me in vain.
Symbolic arbiter of partings,
the First Officer telegraphs
for applied power.
The funnel, my composition’s
centre-piece, significantly
black-capped, ejaculates exhaust.
Hand signals from the bridge
release hawsers.
Propellers implement our parting –
dissipate relationships in
liquid helices.
The window picture dissolves
to a grey void – prognosticates
my future.