Schools of Sharks
On the HMS Apollo, chains in poverty,
prisoners to his majesty, some King George,
bound for southern shoals and strange stars
where schools of sharks feast on less fortunate cadavers.
Someday here will lie, the chastened firstborns
of a modern empire, the sunburnt and white nosed
egalitarians, soaking up the sunshine by a crystal bay —
the blood stains of past cemeteries washed away.
The shallow drafts of keels plowing the ocean’s furrows,
piled up waves of foam like seed beds waiting for corn,
their pinnacled cornices spilling into fishways
like Homer might have said to brave Astynax for comfort.
And on a bay, bright sails sheared dangerous winds
as reefs drew nearer upon the planet’s spin —
the edge of chaos often looms, cartoonish,
like a velvet rope attached to a guillotine.
