Kerri Shying R# 6 The Waterworld

The Waterworld

“This ain’t no Waterworld,”

 the hostess rang her bell so the faithful might worship

“you can only imagine the mere corner of the thing.”

“No”, you said to her, “no, that’s not it, not at all.”

 Bare-faced enough to bicker with her lover and

Next to me the husband,  silent.

I saw marriage, light as air

ascribe a parabola above my head.

Find another way,

resolve this geometry, back to square.

Stirred-up, elbows out at right angles I bathe in hunger- sawing this beast

– a Biblical beast that seems it could feed ten thousand - carefully

in case my cutlery escapes me like Basil Rathbone’s sword, and cuts out someone’s heart.

Nodding yes to another red

Acquiescence to a need

you are my lift back home

Obsolete and winded,

my veins begin a dull red ache

churning beyond capacity

face cannot be saved,

let alone the earth

Underfoot the young find the rabbit holes

beneath the dining table.

Our ship

 weak as wax

church candles,

overpriced at Byron

you insisted they be coddled in the centre console

then abandoned in the Beemer

melting down to nothing.

One more thing nobody wanted to bring in

After the long trip back from holidays

up north

Leave it, you said,

Get it tomorrow.

Her voice; it clung inside my head

I swapped pillows

 listening while we leaked.

The falling wind

our flapping sails

sag in a wet drunk sea.