WRECK

by David Oprava

The re-run TV glow on low,
shades slowed, he lays twitching
in samsaric-bug sutra wed to the bed

whose sheets crooked-swell in small
lapping wavelets stained
with lost semen washed across them;
this is his shipwreck.

His un-cut minnow strains chained
by the furious fist of a skipper's chubby choking,
fantasizing her amidst the strewn debris

of the last decade, whose idea was
it to take this boat into shallow water
he wonders as his harpoon shoots
more white whales in the deep.

Weeping, he sleeps off the sombre
and dreams sweet Mary Ann and Ginger
sandwiches.

She left the key for the final time,
the ring of the phone taken off,
the finger thrown hard against

the wall where it lays next to dirty pants
lingering in that last glace and phrase,
you plonker.

Wraps himself in the sails
and stays bereft inside,
hiding from himself,
the real reason she left.