Alison Claybourne
Overboard
Flailing, already you can picture
the tall stern check, the ungainly turn, you
tossed in the wash a choppy minute or two,
then grappled aboard, dried off –
the embarrassment – but safe
for a joky hour back at the captain’s table.
It’s a puzzle: the stern still dwindles,
reaching to a gunmetal-grey line
that goes right round
and nobody’s looking back.
Dimness and chill grow louder
steadily as the ship fades on your eye.
Bad joke. Moon stares, impartial as charity.
Best dip your face and die. Sorry,
that’s not in the rules, insist the decencies,
even though they have dumped you.
No. You must tread this irksome ocean
till the grey line draws tight and takes you.
Page(s) 37
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