Of Lesser Gods & Pickle Boats

EPIGRAPH FOR GERRY RUSHLOW

Horses in springtime of a memory. We ride
through vernal pools where mares plash like paddlewheels,

their coats glassed with rain.
All winter it was catacombs and dust

and slow gates ceding will to idiots
in us, jogging and loping ourselves dumb.

The four-beat spring’s in gallop as the crows
ascend, discussing plights of lesser gods.


ONE FOR THE PICKLE BOAT 

In the harbour, they’ve blessed the blessed boats 
for their sprints to Mackinac. 

We take our place along the inscrutable shore
to watch the race. A greenbottle fly is perched 

in the right margin, it will drown 
in the kitchen sink tomorrow. OC86, 

the former Windquest, will make it to the island 
in just over 17 hours. I picture the crew 

in foul weather gear as they cut inside 
Cove Island, squinting blind through 

the spray off the hull, switching out sails 
like homonyms, gaining speed in a boat 

whose name they have forgotten. 
We make passing comments about 

each passing boat and bird, the isosceles triangle 
of a taut mainsail against a blue horizon, 

how the word “again” deflates experience. 
Our trundles reefed to boom, lost again, 

finding ourselves again, this summer again. 
How the morning gets so early for that final craft.