She Sails

…a poem…

She Sails

Her ancient paint is dried and curled in edges
Not smooth and tight and even like the new
The sea is just a memory to her red boards
And her canvas lay in tattered black mildew

I’ve often thought of rendering her carcass
Or fitting her all out to sea again
But what had once been eager, now seems lazy
For the years she split the ocean on the wind

Besides, the gulls rest peaceful in her gunwales
An Ol’ Trader sleeps aboard on crusted brine
There I nod and nap outside in sunny breezes
And sail her to horizons in my mind…*

— Michael Brogan