The Sinking of Saint Mary

Pandemonium, sailors cry out

For a chance at kissing Jesus's

Feet, their prayers falling tears

On purling waters, swallowed

Up by lipping tides. While others

Wail to God for a boon of buoyancy.

Hope is aboard. Hope is all used up,

Hope's an empty reserve, a last resort.

Others place muzzles in their mouths

And paint the stormy air pink and red

With cranial confetti. Life rafts lost to

The Poseidon-like waterspouts and to

The cyclones and typhoons, thunderstorm

Over the vessel, The Saint Mary—and

Like countless other vessels with similar

Names, with helpless crews, with both

Brave and cowardly captains—is sinking,

The way a dandelion spore is blown aloft

Into the limitless skies. The captain,

Clenching his teeth, looks into the eye

Of the storm, into the other side of

Eternity, standing in the wheelhouse

With visions of the shallow tides, of

The welcoming shoals. His seafaring

Face is underwater. Saltwater eyes

Watch men dangling from bits of board

Only to be tossed by torrent waves.

The Saint Mary sends her bubbles up,

And her captain and crewmen down.

Later wreckage and corpses wash ashore

On the shallow tides and welcoming shoals.