Apparent Wind

Jeffery Alfier

To gauge the minds of irresolute winds
Palinurus arose before midnight,
the pilot's ear listening for a gale.
Restless now, my Gilded Ship drifts astern
-- a vessel melting into chasmal sky.
Arcing across the measureless expanse
of imminent and stark dissolution,
I wrought a soul's landfall out of season.
Here -- my flesh prints its fading inscriptions
caressing the damp, fragmentary earth.

©Copyright Jeffery Alfier