you who have sea-freedom,
    amalgam & paradox of sadness
    weeping secretly in your laughing chains,
    chained glum & hysterical―

understand that I sail separately,
commandeering the mute shell of my poverty
recently built for personal squalls,
adoring the scents & cliffuls of sounds.

I am in the clack & tick of the evening's spheres
and move very visibly, subtly
through many tributaries. I set small fires to the fog of ideas,
observing the dinghies & waves and there you are,
sad sack,
gruff with gall and lost in your many wet sermons.

I am not your brother.
I don't really think about you.
I think of workers anchored in the dusty sun,
the bees with their neat, furry agendas,
        the whole sea-free image in which I partake
        like a spectre, a speaker―
I clasp the city as it echoes in the wind's empty glass.

you should know, as you tie fast the ragged mast with your hands,
that I am not at all lost.
I have little to teach.