NIGHT-SEA JOURNEY

NIGHT-SEA JOURNEY

Though he is a person to whom
things do not happen, perhaps they
may when he is on the other side.
E. Gorey

His suitcase is very big, but it's not
a cruise-ship.  He wouldn't get far
floating on it, or trying to steer
by the handle.  He needs a real boat,
since his valise is probably
filled with inconsequential,
at least to sensible people,
trinkets— some photos, framed, and a diary
that hasn't been blessed with many entries.

His topcoat is very long, but it's no life
preserver.  It isn't orange
for starters, but colorful as porridge
perhaps.  It wouldn't excite the sea gulls even
and might be scorned as tasteless
by great white sharks.  So he'll sail at evening.
With him for company, the ticket agent's
bored.  The ocean rolls colder, vacant.

His ship is very late, and the land
erodes or retreats, so the shaky pier's
his final refuge.  Something looms nearer
on the horizon—
an island or whale in the full moon's teasing
unrefined light.
Terns squawk, berating onshore breezes
that blow them near.  He'll sail all night
 if ever, but has no snack to eat.

Finally, he's very cold, though the tide
promises a ship, or to deliver
a transport to save the potential voyager.
You might say he's dissatisfied.
But if steam would pipe from smoke stacks,
around which fluttered flags of every country,
he could make jokes with the first mate.
And if the gang-

plank dropped on the other side,
stung alive by ocean's frothing all night,
he'd shake hands with the by-now jovial captain
and sagacious travelers.  That's the new man.


Jack Hayes
© 2010

This poem originally appeared in Timbuktu

 
[Photo shows Charleston, SC harbor; the poem was written on a visit to South Carolina in 1986]