Sabbath


   Early Sunday morning,
there on the Bulwark of Fort Sumter,
   where everything turned bloody;
   I stare out to sea and the mist
   blows a ghost ship towards me.
It is all quite normal the way
   I weep in the moment of knowing.
It is the Amistad, with Joseph Cinque
   at the helm, calmly surveying
the folds of the sea, the bloated gulls
   And a song turns in my head,
edging my teeth with sorrow;
   the salt of long-gone days, the tears.
(Midland,p.74)