Terra cotta brigantines sail the sky.
Masted without shrouds—mere skeleton ships
With living crews still scrubbing the underdeck marble planking,
Boiling away in the hold, hands flayed on the rigging,
Never knowing whether they are at sea,
Foundered on shoals,
Or found safe harbor.
Floundering in their humid breaths of stale air
As Zephyrus fills out the sailcloth of time.
Terra cotta brigantines cut the clouds.
Three points off the aft starboard to portside
And straight on to the setting sunrise of the zenith’s midnight,
Trimming their ribs in the squalls, octants sighting souls,
Always tacking into the days made old,
Weeks made anew,
The stars made sand.
Forevers made nothing but the knots in the cord
As their prows crash over the breakers of men.
—for Bert