---
title: The shipwright
genre: verse

id: shipwright
toc: "Shipwright"

project:
    title: Elegies for alternate selves
    class: elegies
    order: 21
    prev:
    - title: Serengeti
      link: serengeti
    next:
    - title: Spittle
      link: spittle
...

| He builds a ship as if it were the last thing
| holding him together, as if, when he stops,
| his body will fall onto the plate-glass water
| and shatter into sand.  To keep his morale up
| he whistles and sings, but the wind whistles [louder][]
| and taunts him: Your ship will build itself
| if you throw yourself into the sea; time
| has a way of growing your beard for you.
| Soon, you'll find yourself on a rocking chair
| on some porch made from your ship's timbers.
| The window behind you is made from a sail, thick
| canvas, and no one inside will hear your calling
| for milk or a chamberpot.  Your children
| will have all sailed to the New World and left you.
| But he tries not to listen, continues to hammer
| nail after nail into timber after timber,
| but the wind [finally blows][] him into the growling ocean
| and the ship falls apart on its own.

[louder]: apollo11.html
[finally blows]: theoceanoverflowswithcamels.html