If I had a voice

If I made a sound, with a slow stroke of tongue

I would make it wade with the storm – 

and catch a basic
fish, calling it a carp; and furthermore, if I slipped into the bay
i'd say, “to the sea…
roll rough, roll on!”; I would learn to ride
just past the tide of younger thoughts,
we generally spoke below the roar
…I’d let it rage!

I learned to list and right myself,
I leaned both left and right,
I carried, yet, bigger thoughts
like loud passengers and then waited
For them to sleep at night.
Though, they are night fellows:
that gamble in the dark, and tear at my decking when drunk:
that ripped at loose boards
and hollered at the seascape about them
until opened sides let in the sea-wash
as seaward I leaned…

My words fed like owls perched aboard a ship;
unusually, it seemed, but spread like ghost.
They carried their weight as on sea mist, light yet heavy;
they raised with sails in the anguish of the beat of their wings, as
I labored at the masthead.

My hand dipped in the swells as
the water made webs between fingers,
Ghost owls wisely leave their perch as
the stiff breakers began to hit in rhythm:
the owl’s flight was muffled by the surf.

They didn't quite leave, though they flew
above the drifting currents
that blew the sails and set my ship further off course.
I paced the deck above the depths,
I drank like a soul burning from life.
If the sea could raise a carpenter to fix this listing ship,
and right this course; where all maps pinch
along the fold.