Le Séducteur

Doesn’t that shining line

Of ocean, broken

Suggest a ship at sea,

Or something? Ah, if to be

“At sea” is to be lost,

Left out, or just un-

Certain of the meaning,

Someone else chimes in.

Nevermind, I’m sure it’s

Nothing, someone else insists

Of this impossible vessel — 

Crafted of affect and lack

Of glasses, the sail a conceit

Of low clouds, the bow

A row of breakers, sun

Glinting off the port-

Hole (imagined) of the cabin

Below whose bed is also,

As we say, the sea-

Bed or floor (as if it were

A dwelling down there,

Where the restless sleepers

Are scattered bone). A ship

At sea is only a figure

Of speech somebody else

Claims: a quick shape — 

Suggested by the passage

Of a cloud and the tug

Of  the current; a thin dream

Already almost forgotten ... 

If you can forget the cargo,

Another adds, which was

Human: though that fact

Was somehow less visible

To the traders than the trade

Routes traced out across

The dissolving paper

Map, under a spill of silver

Coins poured out. Life

Is brief, one might sigh

At this point: a matter

Of water in water

Moving, each of us

Carefully bearing

The bags we packed

With cherished flotsam

And jetsam, clutching

A one-way ticket

Printed on a spume

Of wind-blown white ...  

A pretty image, used

To excuse too much:

As if the lives enslaved

Were worthless as this

Sudden welling up

Of what is mostly self-

Pity (salt at my lips,

You say, my vision

Swimming). Nothing.

It’s nothing but ... 

It’s nothing. To be

At sea is also to be,

As we say, astray or

In the dark, hoping

For terra firma, and

To be enlightened,

Soon, as to just what

Was meant by that sad

Laugh and last remark.