Wreck, Shipped

By Eric Lawson

I saw your sails billowing from across the street.
Shredded, muddied, ribbons of a flag pattern.
I saw your mast jutting outward, defiantly.
Splintered and bent; your crow’s nest askew.

Your shipping package was soaked by a
torrential rain that I had slept through.
Your handwritten destination smeared
and confounding like worn hieroglyphics.

I am entranced by your broken beauty.
Who was foolish enough to leave you?
Who was absent enough to drop you?
What could have distracted from you?
Why would anything come between
you and your intended dry dock love?

The spell is broken as my bus approaches.
No time to save you as the overcrowded
110 to Culver idles for no tide or man.
No time to make more time this time.
With an anchor heart, I climb inside.

Eight hours and bus tokens later, I
disembark one stop earlier so that I
might lay claim to your wrecked glory.
(If only as one sidewalk ship to another)

You are nowhere to be found.
I hope you have not been lost.
Set adrift even more so by those
who would steer you yet farther
from tracking numbers,
the insured collector,
and the limitless sea.