I’m a stowaway on a cold rubber boat.
My desires and old love letters are the sails,
I paddle with spoons and old New Yorkers.
From a surge of waves comes a sleek head,
a piercing in its nose –
A seal with a straw of plastic.
And birds fly, gone as my thoughts
to have remembered
what some once called “the other” –
small wonder; the Captain is burning
crotches with cigars; praising trench
warfare with swigs of Coca-Cola,
shooting maggots. A rhinoceros in pink tutu dances.
With belt and surveillance cameras,
he tramples a dozen bouquets of white roses.