In Fog We Keen

In fog we keen to passing flax sails
stretched across the shoulders of a gale,
though wheeling tern and gull cry
with our same sea-washed throats,
reason slit insensate as coral slices sodden skin.

We only know the shallow world by spasmed reach,
where turtles are swift beasts,
where slicked green feeds the spark of trevally,
and granite crevice clamps on ballast sunk
unclaimed by half-beings, we hoarders of need.

Were your seafarers cast aside?
Perhaps we wanted those untended fires in the wind;
wanted more the roaring angels of wind,
who arrive by spar and cloth; or further,
the purpose of those angels, destination.