Boat-Floaters

Come get me
off my shoal.  I’ll do the same
for you sometime.  We both need
water under our keels.

We both need more flavor
in the diet.  Salt in the milk,
blood in the fresh cheese.
We both like the faces we make

when we taste things that seem
raw and wrong.  Always go back
for a second try.  Make the same faces
again, try again, declare it not so bad.

Back on our boats, quick to declare
we know nothing of the sea
but love the way it feels. Love to rock
and grind against what’s under the surface,

sticking on it occasionally but that’s
what the other is for.  Gimme a shout
sometime when you’re stuck out there
afraid of foundering; I’m waiting.  Got the salt

and the milk and the blood for your cheese
waiting when we get to the dock.  Got a rock
for the pillow and a chain for the feet.  I’m
your boat-floater, you’re my boat-floater, let’s see

where the tide take us when the rudder breaks
and we’ve got no compass, nothing but ourselves
as weird as meat and old potatoes doused in acid and the wind
to drive us ahead.  Boat-floaters! Extreme eaters

with appetites we don’t dare define
for fear of losing them; sailors who are never seasick,
never cold, always in danger of drowning,
but never too far out of earshot to miss each other in the fog.