Sister
No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel
On the blank stones of the landing...
—Sylvia Plath
From our distant, glistening port we see
your splendorous wreck twist with tides
ebbing through the gap to a wilder channel.
We steam by on harder hulls, watch you there
awash in your dark hemisphere, parallel
and heavy beneath a soaking sea,
cargo gone to memory with the sway
of wave and word.
of wave and word. Sometimes, a call reaches
the rail of our passing ship and we leap
to the waves breaking inside the skeleton
of wreckage cloaking the rocks of the final coast.
We surge delicately in rotting ribs
still bleeding a strange resin through the rocking
of wet salt. Bobbing within, we raise our cold hands,
bloodied by sharp lips of barnacles and rust,
reach out to your brow like a sister.
—Mike Burwell