The Red Dory

The surrealist, tempering his reds, paints the gunwales

of a boat he has limned with his own hand. He paints

himself in the stern, an ape gazing at wave upon wave,

yet the sublime is an anesthetic under which the orangutan

has nothing to say to an exasperated sea. His quiet

virility has eclipsed sorrow, but, if so, are the oars tongues?

And if tongues, do they sink into bafflement, or do they beseech

the elephant-headed deity of good fortune to dwell among them

&, after a day not yet realized, to turn them toward home?