Angel of the Graveless Whalers (2000)

So fuck it he said,
striding down the beach
ignoring the sprawled
bodies of love lost,
the wives dying of betrayal
and the others who
just loved elsewhere.
Fuck it. I followed him
because there wasn’t much to do,
the hours now lame
and decrepit with easy guilt
and irks. Fuck it! It seemed
like such a casual way
to rebel through the walls
of this self-condemning, ululate fate,
and so I followed him back
to the ocean which boomed
its annihilate welcome.
He waded on out
like a stone man in a liquid kiss,
his shoulders all sinew and bone,
the back of his head like a
bulging eye or nutsack:
Paused there a moment
to summon a great blue
dolphin which surfaced
with a whinny of pure joy.
He mounted the bone saddle
of the beast and turned
to stare at me with all the
fury and folly of the sea:
Green blue eyes open
not in invitation but
command, for better or ill:
to walk on through
the broken bodies of love
and the hell on outta here:
And just two words
to keep me from
kicking any bucket,
a pearl set inside a
brute iron socket,
a brine saddle
to ride to hell
and pluck it:
A prayer for
all the graveless
whalers who
didn’t make it
back to Nantucket:
Say it and let’s be gone: