Sailor's Sunday

short autumn sunlight
leaves time before night
only long enough
to tell a single drink
with the saddest story
on the rocks –
The garden beneath her windows is dying.
The flowers beneath her willow are dying.
Above her small house, an old flag is flying.

 left, west, sunset—when it’s red
puts sailors to bed
good dreams,
of wives’ lives, always
all ways white
in light
yellowed sunrise;

when the quiet hits the deck
when the quiet hits the men
when there is just the deck
and the men
and the sky
and the sea

they hit the quiet and
make up
memories
to pass time until sunset,
sunrise,
sunset,
sunrise.


That land is
the wrong land.


Ladies ashore—at
home, dream at the silky
black
bring him back
 and the children in their
waiting room sheets,
sleep nicely
concisely
precisely, and
make up
bad dreams
to pass time until sunrise,
sunset,
sunrise,
sunset.




Papa smoked nice cigars and whistled
while he worked.

No heroes.
No villains.
Just the deck and the
men and the sky
and the
sea.

Always the sink
and the sorrow
and the crash at that
time-passaged dawn
of tomorrow,
far out at waves
was nighttime storm
grown to be
a morning glory—
the kind that washes away story
and song.


No heroes.
No villains.
Just a wife at home
and a child and nightmares
and the sky
and the
sea.

Wives’ lives at home, baking
last of the bread
last of the milk to
soften last of the bread –

 dear husband’s dead.

She’s whistling while
she works, can't
remember his
old tunes and
making up
melodies
to pass time until –