THE SHIP OF FOOLS


On the floor a cigarette smokes
although its owner has given up.

Continuously the cistern fills.
A boy breaks his missing father's toothpick.

Regretful, scared, he hides
under the bed where no body's slept

for centuries. So he misses the spinnaker
unfurling in front of the bay window.

The breeze picks up the day, tumbling
its has-beens into the port. Already

there is no question of survivors.