Fine

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