A Chance Encounter

The time fell
like sand,
sliding off your belly
crumbling onto the beach.

I looked
Into your green eyes
Full of compassion,
Certainty,
Naked truth.

The truth hit me
like a ton of mason bricks
thrown from the Chase tower.

You accepted me, I accepted you
The mess covered us.
like a thousand crawling caterpillars
all heading east.

That's funny
They forgot to ask
Me to come.

Clara the Bride of the Ship

The black ladder tilted across the mizzen as it grew darker in the brilliant glare of moonlight. Pollox watched the black sky. Their sailors heaved the mast on board as the moon shown bright upon their rusted daggers. It was that time of night and the men were heavy with want for their bride: the sea. Uncorked the shattered glass of the night lay gathered on the deck.  Like moon beams cast across the ship's stern. Withered the sailors had become, rejoicing and shouting. Behind the mast, she was the bride of the ship. Mounted to the mast her bosom rising and falling with the sea's tide. Lay the beloved Clara tied to the ship's mast. A woman apart from her old world. Letting herself, unwontedly becoming part of the ship's crew. A gazed upon part of the ship, like some needed accouterment. A necessity to keep the ship afloat.
The mast held her back straight as the waves shook the vessel sending it headlong into the spitting Atlantic ocean.

A shout comes from the poop deck and a man climbs down the rope ladder to the deck.
The ship has seen land ahead. The crew breathes a sigh of relief. And Clara stifles a shout of joy.
Maybe her life could be better now?
She could run away from these fiends that had held her hostage for so long. Maybe...
But fate held her captive.

A seagull squawked his war cry as he dove fearlessly into the water skimming its surface pouncing on its struggling aqueous victim.  Clara watched as the fish struggled within its captor's jaws; with a quick toss in the air, the gull swallowed the fish whole.
Maybe she was being overly sentimental but this brought tears to Clara's eyes. What if her fate were to be the same? A quick struggle but an authoritative grip to silence any wish for escape.
The sound of sailor's feet bounded down the galley to her door. The mutter of wind forced a whistle through the door which opened quickly to reveal not a sailor but the captain himself adorned in his best coat and Bi-Corne hat.

"Come on lassie were goin' out to thee' docks for a swagger."
With little resistance from the weakened Clara, she stumbled across the deck to come face to face with the sharp glare of her conniving captor, Ralph P. Vertnik...