Gullible’s Travels

You are gone
On the horse latitude deck
I taste the absent hours
Swollen tongue searches
The empty tin cup
Tied to the drained barrel
Salt pork
Stuck between teeth
Gone bad
You are lime
To my scurvy 

Crewmates
Say it is for the best
Sailors lost at sea
Rationalize and ration
The first to die
Satisfies hunger

I voyage
The dead sea town
Hop deserted island bars
Robinson minus Caruso
My coconut head fills with rum

Across the undertow
Auto-tuned sirens
Beckon
In sweeping tides
Of attraction and repulsion

Every port of entry
Seems like an oasis
Cool grottos of self-delusion
Punctured by fangs of sunrays
No matter the currents, the ebb and flow
Inebriated Lilliputians
Tie me down

I escape
Bilge rat jumping ship
The stars,
The wind in sails
Speak the truth
A new charted course

You are a shadow of a sun not risen,
The deceitful promise of horizon
You are not coming back
You found a safe harbor

Rod Drought, an ex-New Yorker, now calls Arizona his home. He has four books of poetry found on his website, droughtsthirst.com. He has been published in many literary journals, and is co-administrator to Port of Call Poetry, an online page that supports poets worldwide.