The Shipping Forecast
I am sinking too far from the inch-high lighthouse
sweeping Malin Head with its tiny beam.
This boat is scuppered, to be terribly frank.
It’s lit up by lightning
just beyond the box grey of Banba’s Crown.
Wild spray like eiderdown
rat-a-tats the teak helm wheel
as I straddle the extended bowsprit’s jibboom—
anthracite then white in the Morse light.
The weird sea fondles the fo’c’sle
as mackerel canoodle in the black-green soup
like reverse jackdaws leaked beyond their clattering
and silenced by thunder. From the shore
you might see my whale oil lamp
dance on the horizon; its small, yellow fire
woofed higher as the stern slips under.
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