Pete Smith, EVACUATION PROCEDURES.


FROM THE OSSUARY.

              for Keston Sutherland

A broken may desire to move
          toward a healing
but the holistic is an arrogance
          immune to affect.
Songs were spaced along
          the lifeline, once.
They were married & buried
          together: the loning
has kept its primitive chord
          sculpture – pibroch
to the twelve bars of blue
          predictability: a soothing
& a saying to keep
          the unhale heartened:
a seventh leading back to
          home key. A dry dock
for leaky vessels, a scuttle
          of metal plates welded
by heat & rivet, "There, that'll hold."
          Water, sparing not a drop
of empathy despite its buoyancy,
          filled each lung & cabin,
corridor & trachea with its own
          unleavened weight.
A wreath of white lilies on ocean's
          disturbed surface hardly roots
grief to the spot any more than angst
          acts as rudder for anyone's
unconscious. Steerage is a class act
          to follow: depth measured
by ignorance's height above it.
          When the captain was unspliced
from the yardarm
          the tattoo on his ulna read
"If I'd've been a split stick,
          I'd have savioured everyone."