She would beg:
Press your cool coin
Here and here and here—
If water faring were a game.
But she once paid
For smuggled lips
With children’s years
The same sad way
Her gold-lost fathers did—
A toll nine decades dear.
This swell is no child’s play.
Her only claim:
Scrawled treasure maps and
Deep sea dreams of a pirate’s beard.
2012
The framework of this poem makes me think of Lisa Hannigan’s “Lille” and its sublime video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaFs_uEfqhM
But of course the substance of the poem takes one even deeper into Neptune. Much deeper.