We were in some pretty bad tide rips
listing from side to side
and my captain was taking a leak
over the port gunwale
when I heard him shout,
“Mark Twain!”

And then the sea grew calm
and a mischievous cloud cover
turned the volcanoes pink.

I lost my life there, left it
in the little makeshift
graveyard on the hill
overlooking the harbor where
they buried the kid who came up to crab
and the guy whose brother
hit him with a vodka bottle one winter.
Who could withstand such sweetness?

*****

Matthew Freeman’s new book of poems, Ideas of Reference at Jesuit Hall, is soon to be published by Coffeetown Press. He holds an MFA from the University of Missouri-Saint Louis and teaches a workshop. He is also a songwriter.

Follow Matt on Facebook

Order Matt’s books: Trying to Take a Nap is available from Kattywompus Press

Everything I Love Restored and Other Poems, Boulevard of Broken Discourse and Darkness Never Far are available at Coffeetown Press