The Moya View

Abandoned Boat

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The Little Bessy  molts its white chipped,

dull letters out to waves it cannot use.

 

Capsized on the rocky Maine beach, where

it once fished for lobster in richer anchors,

the peapod displays its tattered nets on its hull

while the Man O War, filled with a haul of tourists,

bruises the gentle waves of Penobscot Bay.

 

Its oars are mounted on the lobster shack wall,

its sails framed in the nautical museum.

Abandoned are the days it was pulled

from its moorings on the wharf and sailed

through Penobscot air or spilled weighted circles,

 

days that were longer than any of its old parts,

times when old hands  hoped for better ways

never knowing they’ve come and gone.

 

Its broken, rusty anchor once met the spent waves,

the hands holding and releasing it down

to mate firmly with the mount, the moment

when the old lobsterer father firmly grounds

The Little Bessy’s wanton desire to push out to sea.

 

Betrayed and exposed every day, run by no one,

Bessy drifts into beauty she never desired:

the pretty postcard in the wharf gift shop,

photos taken by others rushing by in other boats,

when she was always meant to be the secret

memory of the lobsterer hauling up his lonely pots.

 

 

 


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One response to “Abandoned Boat”

  1. carolineshank Avatar

    while the Man O War, filled with a haul of tourists,

    bruises the gentle waves of Penobscot Bay. BRILLIANT. The repetition is very effective.

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