roil
“Old man, you surface seldom.” ~ Sylvia Plath.
Waves make graves out of deep icy waters;
even for those who glide a full fathom
under the storm. Harborage for readers,
poets and all the used books that love them.
One day type, “libraries near me,” and you'll
get me ... for a while. La Sirène reading
Sexton. Port to port; a dream in the Gulf
Stream with books galore in the hold. Hauling
riches: chapbooks, zines, sonnets. Such sea toil
delights, ask Jonah. I've the sea hag's craft,
soothsayer of the surf, cowrie shell's boon.
Waves tell me whatnot, dreadnought, shoals roil,
rift. Blue-green crashing. Flotsam's drift and draft
and books enough to calm any typhoon.
][][
Note.
I stole, “And like a dream in the Gulf-Stream/ Sinking, vanish all away,” from Longfellow. Also, it turns out a fathom is about six feet (1.83 meters), so when Ariel says, "Full fathom five thy father lies," in The Tempest that's only about 30 feet. I always thought it would be deeper.