A cutter risen from the mollusks, it is a god
with a god carved on the stempiece
arriving in Detroit with Jesuits,
feluccas, pinnaces and brigantines,
the mainsail hauled out on a little tackle.
Here cometh what hath broken your legs …
the king of France, the Secretary for the Latin
Tongue, the Lord High Butler of England
with coronation jewels, and the chandlers.
They have broken me for the last time.
I spit on them all.
They lie on the high poop all the night
with open eye, with wenches, singing
in radium like Chaucer and the smale fowles.
A sail in Atlantis in the morning, a Sappho
of a sloop slapping the buss ship London
white and anchored as a living clam.
Michigan freshwater walnut trees.
The memoirs
canvas, cable, chain, tar, paint.
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