IRONY

In 1821, Owen Coffin was a teenaged sailor aboard the Nantucket whaler, Essex. When a whale rammed and breached the hull of the ship in mid-ocean, near-starved survivors were forced to eat the bodies of those who had died. When those resources ran out, the four men remaining drew straws to decide which of them should be sacrificed. Coffin lost, and was shot and eaten.

Even in the last

Essex lifeboat

Only a short distance

From the whale-damaged ship

He stayed true

To his obligation

Making the ultimate sacrifice

To become the bread

Unleaven.

Little did he consider

In those few

Final minutes

That he would

Never see Nantucket

Or sleep forever

Inside his own namesake –

Failing to realize

That when the predator

Becomes prey

The fisherman

Is the fish.