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Sailor Song
Over a blue seabed in Baker’s bateau,
I kneaded loaves for bread: they rested, then they rose.
I went ashore at dark in Gardener’s green.
Gravid as a stork, I waited there till spring.
On days my boat’s becalmed, I fall into arrears,
starboard’s a charm, and port, a veil of tears.
Though as for submarines, a blue whale’s where I’ll keep.
Quite snug while he careens, and oceans, deep.
Otis, a Portrait
Lightly, a hidden bell goes bing
when polished, brassy Otis
opens the sliding door and lets
you bustle in, coming, going.
Then all is quiet going up
and down, then up another floor.
A dial ticks above the door,
people get on or off, each stop.
He’s well-seasoned, is Otis. He
is never getting out, himself,
of course, but stands the night, empty
of you, caught in a darkened shaft.
Zara Raab's most recent collection is Swimming the Eel. Her poems and reviews appear fairly widely in little magazines including River Styx, The Dark Horse, Nimrod, Verse Daily, and New Verse News. She lives north of Boston and participates in the Powow River Poets led by Rhina Espaillat and affiliated with the Frost Farm in Derry, N.H.
photo: Henry Cherry