Ten years ago
when my colleague Barbara didn’t understand
a personal ad in which a prospective suitor
described himself as
"a splendid wreck of a man"

I had no problem explaining it to her,

all the while denying why
I understood the phrase,
that I had taken from it a presage of

my own salt gray ribs
battered by implacable seas
inherent within and invited in
from without,

how from a distance,
it would be attractive
in black and white tourist shot
fashion,

beautiful until
one got close and saw
the mortised joints had fallen apart,
the integrity of something that had once
sailed through storms
had become a sculpture of rot,

saw how function had failed
and form had become
a random ruin, good for nothing
except as a commentary
on the cost of reckless adventure.

Barbara, it should be noted,
passed on replying, proving that a prophet
is not always without honor
on his own shore.