Marooned on a ship
in a bottle, necessary wind stopped
by a cork stopping too all
hope of departing rural Minnesota.
All reserves now drained
by unnecessary swabbing and
the continual charting
of courses, only to once more crash
into glass.
A glass bubble, dumb
and deaf to all the world, drifting
aimlessly, left ever higher
and drier by its self-
imposed segregation.
I have hatched a plan:
rock the boat;
make some waves;
roll the bottle
off the table;
and when the bottle
shatters on the hard
marble floor a gust
of fresh wind will fill
this ship’s sagging
sails and I shall sail it
down, down
through the earth’s core
and all the way to enlightened China.