Bone in Your Teeth

To say a vessel has a bone in her teeth is to mean she’s going well, with a white wave at her bow. This is a portrait of a shellfishing boat.

Bone in your teeth around the point—
a clean wind fills the doghouse,
fills your lungs faster than you can breathe it,
sends a sudden flush to your heart,
then settles around you, and you within it;
a warmth of coffee at lip and nose

and all the familiar fabric of sound: 
the leaning post of the waterman's ear—
the diesel thrum, voices of the crew,
the hissing of the radio
and transmission snaps;
the binoculars rocking in their rack.

Then the living mud pulled up, tumbling and writhing,
studded with a spin and topple of shapes more wonderful
than could be imagined, than could be dreamt—
smooth and complex in every curve,
or burgeoning with calcified wavelets,
clumped and covered green, black, rusty red.

Heeling to the load while cormorants dive,
and a gull swirls, and the exhaust eddies,
and the ensign wraps around its staff;
turning in the froth and cloudy currents
that you make, and home again, full.

- for Jonathan Waters

~~~~~~~~~~

Douglas Logan

Comments

[Vanphen]

Mowett personify! It's a pleasure to read. thank you!