Doldrums, doldrums
eviler than the devil.
–
The Cyclopes’ prism eye
revolves around me
in a mechanical chatter.
–
It calls out desires at night,
a mermaid cast up on shore
–
that awakens with the caw
of a thousand slaughtered gulls
–
sending me scrambling
back to the darkness,
–
afraid to touch
the brightness of hell.
–
Doom to scrub the deck
till shining like
a sperm whale’s pecker;
–
falling in the whitewash
and awakening to a gull
worming at me boot laces;
–
tugging barrels, lugging barrels,
spit polishing the insides of them.
–
Gulls have the souls of sailors
hidden inside their caw,
–
and when the weathervane
points to the east side wind
–
for seven months the waters
be too great to launch or land
–
and I be damned near
wedded to this here light.
–
Or she be a figment of my imagination
and I just be gull food
to peck on on these rocks?
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