A beach back of bric à brac,
wine goblet of sky ... .
the horizon beginning
somewhere between Nod &
nigh unto forever with
only the sigh of a Casuarina pine
or sea-grape to force a smile.
It was entering into twilight
--our minds were sailing ships,
mere vagaries upon the waves,
mine more a clippership
on the Frisco to China run.
Soirèe intimée,
apèrtif, digestif?
A bottle of rum
with Eleuthera for a name
--the prettiest coves
have steadfast winds
dark about portside.
Silvery light of stars,
the stars like black hansom cabs
with livried footmen before
shark-toothed clouds,
a shark-faced moon,
the sight of a shark breaking water,
lemon-white its gullet with the
Big Dipper stuck in a shark tooth.
Diamondhead or Copperback?
Carpetbaggers ... the moon's silver tea-set
giving birth to wonderment
flooding in affection
a Raouel Dufy lithograph,
some decrepit Neapolitan fisherman
zoning his epic life
to human proportions.