That Ship

That ship over there,

         leaves a golden state,

whatever its heading,

         wherever it makes landfall,

as steam rises,

         from that moving altar,

as its hull cuts a cemetery sea

         above each rank of corpses

under quiet fathoms,

         as its wake remembers

all the fallen,

         as my eye seeks horizon’s end,
I recall you are one of them

         and I will soon be.