Which coastline will catch that lighthouse beam?
Where is the shore to make a landing on a brink?
Arrival, depending on the height of waves, it seems
Boat planks brightly etched in colored ink
Tattooing the waves’ seam
How, fleetingly, lives are gliding across those kinks
When waves topple over the boat akin to the deadly boar
Crashing the crest, is anyone going to be seen and wink?
Swelling corpses gliding from the planks, into a sea that soars
Gripping to that galley’s battered bow
Two translucent knuckles letting go of hold, in sync
The tiller takes the rank, and the pirogue has slowed
Leaving the port of Sète the ferry ignored the ones who sank
Taking the tourist load onto a Tangier-bound ferry boat
Ignoring those holding onto the wooden plank
My rudderless Sepia ink spills and makes rings
It laps up my poems’ lies and lines
As if it were a wink for the dying, who refuse to sink.