mizzen

sifting through the creaks of wet wood
the creases of my face
in my safe hands.
an aspirin in the face of sundries
plundered and blood-sullied
to the warehouses of exotic lands.

the chorus of the foams fill my lungs:
‘and is this Henry Leech?’, they say
this spray-ridden mutiny
dutifully wrapped in a black mizzen mast’s
sail,
the last of the Trail’s four captains
casketed and seeped in kelp and gilt,
the keep of the seas
with shale and silt
to credit our valued dog.