By the mangrove jetty sits the Captain
And all his bad teeth
Shine in the sun like ivory because
That’s what they’re made of.
They shine by moonlight and under oil lamps
Because of smiling
Constantly upon the Indian Ocean.
Someone has thoughtlessly left a cannon
On the waterfront
For two hundred years. But it doesn’t work,
Luckily for you.
He’d make his own gunpowder if he could
And sling cannonballs
All day long booming over the green deep.
He married this boat a long time ago,
And night after night
He sleeps with his imaginary niece
On bosomy swells,
And dreams of navigation, oranges,
And a clean salt wind
That will put everything back as it was
Before flying-boats, before photographs,
Before Diet Coke,
Before the military policemen,
Before kerosene.
Then he’ll haul up his mast and all unfurled
Triangulate south
Using those teeth as some sort of compass.