Fate

adrift on an ocean of my own blood
I am the lost mariner

whose flag is bleached to primer
by the ragged sun

whose skin has been flayed
and fashioned
into a sail

whose silhouette
is a dead tree

whose eyes are
broken pieces
of the moon

whose hands
clasp and clap
in prayer

whose treasure map
has no X

whose anchor claws a world
too heavy to lift

whose love arises from the dead
each Monday
and is executed each Friday
by a firing squad of child soldiers

whose poems are bright fish
swimming down to be eaten
by black mud

whose only friends
are the turtles
he eats

whose fate was to dream
and having dreamed
fall silent

whose pen coughed
and became still.