Saturday Poem

THE SHIP AS NAVIGATOR

five boards from a pine
precede
and outlast me

I have lived
with my elbows on this table

and pots and pans
and papers

idiot life! sun and moon
wars, computers
mini-skirts, long skirts, knee-length
--holy jeans

and lilies, day and species
nights
with last Scotch

my raft amid the galaxies, themselves
fleeing like refugees

winters of Saint-Denys Garneau
blizzards
from all sides, some
appleblossom

night turns
on this coordinate

a kitchen chair, some cracked
refurbished boards

From The Stream Exposed with All its Stones: Collected Poems (2010) by D.G. Jones