Victory

HMS Victory
(For Emma Hamilton)

The sea, I know, was your first love
If I was mistress at all
It was to her
Sharp red kisses scorching dry across your cheeks.

They say love is trying vainly
To make two people one, to eat each other whole. I tried
Dear gods, to eat faster than her
Love bites, she took from you
Great hungry mouthfuls:
An eye,
An arm.

Though sometimes maybe it was her I loved through you.
Drinking her in your cold salt kisses
The rough seaweed tangle of your hair.
I rode you like a bust on a flagship,
Your storm rising under me,
Your battle thrill and fear.
You took me to sea. Let her gush in me.
And you and she and I were one



Though I confess I never felt
The gunshot run you through.
I sat stitching samplers
As you breathed your last
In the barrel womb
Of the belly of Victory.

Suckling on brandy, you fell out pickled.
Your mast was for England
Your torso for the King
Your last kiss for the Captain (The Captain?)
They tore your skin and drank your blood
Just to feel the taste of her run through them once
As I did once.

As I did once.

My bounty a clump of russet jetsam
Washed up in my lap with a kiss.
Dry, rusted, greying
With the last of my memories of her.