…you are alone with the Alone,
and it is His move.
                 Robert Penn Warren

The old buccaneers are leaving
now. They have had
their fill. A blue halo

has circled the imitation
gold, and the real, and they
are bewildered. All

is shimmering. The sea
is shimmering like a marvelous belly
viewed from the outside

during a blizzard in the mountains.
For each other
they are shimmering.

They do not know what splendor
is balanced
atop the foresail now, what

it is that is moving, moving
toward them, down.
They rub their bodies.

The skin is a fine lace
of salt and disease,
and something is moving

just under the skin
and they know
that it is not blood.