Sailing on “Hattie”

Sailing on “Hattie”

no, she is not alone
you are here, here with her
here, here, here on this boat
a likeness of a first boat, a trimaran she helped build.
the boat she walked away from, the boat she remembers up on the ways
at Harbor Boat and Yacht dwarfed by the giant hulls
of commercial tuna boats swollen with worm rot
and, yet, as with the first, a big boat,
something you feel.
winch yourself up the main to the crow’s nest and
lean out, spread your arms over her beam - -
the outer hulls are wings, great white wings
which promise other places, the Society and Marquesas.
this boat was built because the woman could - - because she knew
the first boat so well, every detail.
alone she sails, but not alone, Remember
you are here, here with her - - pushing away morning,
winching in the main sheet, dodging sharply tiered straits,
riding out the boils and brews of sucking water,
jibing away from jagged, crustacean encrusted rocks.
Quickly let out the main, raise the spinnaker
- - watch as the sails fill with wind
speeding you by knuckled granite spewed in the way, the way
bones are hastily thrown in an open grave.  There
the soft coast of an overgrown island, opened like broken fruit.
we can nap in the bowed light weaving shadow in the botanicals
amidst the buzz of bees.  it’s the trumpet blasts of the elephants
thundering out of the mountain, the hard split of the camel
and the grind of the work horse calling us back.
here we sail alone, not alone, remember
she is here, here pushing away morning,
pulling herself in and pushing out again.
the light changes on the trunk of a tree, the tree outside
your kitchen window and so changes how to see the tree
and measure time.  coming home to your walls
does it look as if someone has been here - - yes ?
has someone broken in, moved the wall, the one across from your bed ?
after many years do the cycles seem smaller,
happen faster ? - - does the repetition tighten
the walls of your home, a landlocked place,
squeezing everything inside-out, compressing
expectation, expanding dreams ?  the note says she’s out.
she making sail, she knows every detail.