Caribbean Nocturne
As we pull away from the dock
in San Juan past
San Felipe del Morro
the Southern Cross
overhead pursues me South
out through the Caribs’s sea.
I leave the darkness
go below to a feverish dream
drummed into me
by the throb of an engine
the ship’s heart, in a night
whose following morning is flying
fish swept from the deck
like so many waking dreams.
* * * * *
At the Bottom of Tea Cups
I’ve never heard anyone say
referring to a tea drinker
that he was in his cups
though it could be said of me
that like Samuel Johnson
uncountable is the number
of cups of that
golden beverage I daily
knock back. Instead I muse
at the end of a long day
over the numbers
of fortunes I have failed
to see in
the abandoned leaves.