Ship

A Poem by Douglas Caraballo

Photo by Osman Rana on Unsplash

You float on the ocean of life.
Time leaves you now,
more than ever. The willfully ignorant
go out to face the day.
The birds leap up in winged clusters
around a burning grapefruit.

You float on the ocean of life.
Your arteries refresh your memories
The eyes grow dim. The children
cross upon ripples of dried seas.
The wind is the master that shapes the dunes;
re-submerging the remains.

You float on the ocean of life.
and you read, and you make money,
and you smile, and you pull in smoke,
and exhale, and you drink, and you dance,
and you walk with some angelic palm
pressed against your forehead,
buried in your subconscious.

You float on the ocean of life.
An island is off in the distance,
you approach briefly, touch the sand,
and push back out to sea.

Towards that black swell
curving off the edge
of the world,
into the distance.