The thing in writing is, you have to keep doing it, over and over, before you get it right, and even then, you’re never really done with it.
Ships at a distance tread heavy water
hulls burst
the crew is left to swim to shore
She plucks leaves from the ground and presses it flat between two pages of a book, somewhere near a chapter on Kings. She keeps the book tucked between the mattress and white, stripped blankets who occupy this space; leans back, closes her eyes, and begins to dream.
The Captain takes a needle from the drawer and inserts it into neon light at the side of each bunk, extracting an exact dosage, and feeds to each yeoman – giving them no more than what’s prescribed on the manifest.
A creature stirs and kicks, thrusting a foot in the air, ripping off the vines and riggings that have kept it at bay, and pulling itself to its side, howling ‘I’M HUNGRY. Goo goo ga joob. GIVE ME FOOD!’
It tosses its berth like a crib – a creature, no longer a creature, emerging as a child – and jumps to the floor, navigating strange waters and crews who chase her in vain. She speaks, ‘Goo goo ga joob, GIVE ME FOOD,’ grabs her friend and begins to shatter the neon lights. The others wake, diving from their bunks, thrashing and swimming and screeching in tune ‘Goo goo ga joob, GIVE ME FOOD.’ Mariners dive, smashing the neon lights until the ship begins to capsize.
The crew could never quite understand the scene or explain how at every night after the 1900 changeover brief when the parents were shipped away and sailed home alone down dark highways – when 52 & 2 infants mutiny, storming the sixth floor NICU at Memorial Hospital, and flooding it in liquid light.
Strange Sails 