here is the north star. blinking into being. the prick of the pilot’s hand.
dead calm of a vast grey-black. where the offing inks up into the night.
only the ship’s creak. sea-spray mist. lead-shot eye of a whale. watching.
phantom clouds. the upcast rolling in. silver-silt. a silence in its churning.
here is the pathless sea. its dread absence of land. beneath a bone moon.
its threnody the dry clink of irons. the cries of a hold’s manacled ghosts.
here are the blood-soaked timbers. bearing the weight of strange cargoes.
white terror is a prow. carving virgin ocean. leaving the dead in its wake.
& white terror is a wave. relentless as empire. breaking on distant shores.
frozen eyes staring up from cold seabeds. condemned to a watery grave.
