Lanthanum 8.13

13

The sailors, Hart, the sailors in Barbados
fashioned lightweight seashell valentines ‒
mosaics, shell mandalas, roseate signs
(centripetal) of love-bent order (logos-

flowers). & as each visible valentine
is emblem of a violet thought (seal of
a mute immaculate intent, made real)
so every shipshape coracle, each fine-

spun sailor’s hobbyhorse, is like a shallop
sharing scallop shells, or key for a box
bearing hoards of keys : one spin unlocks
them all ‒ each moonshine signal-envelope

exuded by the softest, warmest, most
sequestered crest of life (encrypted pine
beneath the tides). Be Mine,
my Queen, my Cleopatra-Desdemona, ghost-

Ophelia, in the photograph ‒ couched there
(nearly bare) with tintype bit-part players, on
the sidewheeler (from Jewett City down
to Lima, gal). Thin bodkin-signature

on haunted lake, one sinuous moustache
(melodrama-miaow) ‒ negative footprint
off slim rafter’s board (lost heartfelt
Argonaut). Lips lift the calabash

on sounding wave, toward shaken die of
yearning-hurricane... Aye-aye. Your eye.
Scrimshawed in a rickshaw by & by, O
Cap’n Bligh ‒ patented & omnipresent (Joy).

7.23.11