(Remembering millions lost in the depths below.)
The sextant declares a few leagues more,
yet still no land in sight.
Just then, a squall swoops down on the rigging
smothering hull and swamping deck.
Winds rip sails, split masts—night, pitch black,
lost sight of toes, everything soaking wet.
Blind, shackled to spars, I writhe in the hold below.
Thirty-seven, all that is left of two hundred
and fifty, who boarded with me at Goree, on
a voyage we never undertook.
Someone should have heard our screams in the toss
and tumble of lifeboats overboard,
in the green wink of the starboard lantern
substituting for the pole star on a rough night.
The winds wailing loud. Listen, you can hear them
tossing us around like cargo from stave to stave.
Rolling and tumbling, spars creak, beaten
by tidal surge—every move secured, reminded
by chafing chains; action timed like a pulse.
Clanging and banging, the frenzy of pans; skin taut,
bound to the ship’s broken ribs, yet still they leap
overboard. It’s only a few leagues from shore.
Eyes pass over dawn, coastline bright, looking all new,
sick bowels purge on Sargassum, while a hull
with a piece of mast holds the mizzen in place,
to limp like a white cloud over the new horizon.
A sound like links comes tinkling with the tide,
waves dance and cavil with dice and surf,
the reef’s jaws open like a shark’s, wide to receive
us bait. Why can’t you hear the wailing, loud voices
piercing through dawn to reach the shore a few leagues off.
The storm is over, we’re still dying, though
no longer night. Can you hear us? On this strange
coast? Can you see us tunnelling through the coral?
Only a few leagues off, a few leagues from shore.