Pirate Post #4

As I get ready to hit "publish" on this post I am in a hotel in Guadalajara with the Pirate, beginning a week of sightseeing with our priest as tour guide. He wants to show us around his home state (Guanajuato) while talking with us about a couple of programs he'd like us to be involved in. What an amazing blessing this is - I know we would never have come over to the mainland as tourists by ourselves, but to see these places through the eyes of a native Mexican is a real privilege. We'll be here a week and I promise to write about it when we get back.

Meanwhile, here's one of my favorite poems that the Pirate wrote for me. It's such a tender ode to a secure relationship.


The Waves of Wednesday

My porpoise wife has learned to breathe underwater
She exhales rhythmically as the little blue waves of Wednesday
Lap against our sides in the dark
The water’s warm here, under the covers,
In the wee hours before the moon insinuates it’s gravity,
And pulls our tidal coverings back out,
To be lost at sea again.

I’m thinking everything, but mostly how good
The warm mud of our mattress feels
As it squishes between my quickly evolving toes.
We used to be trout, the porpoise and I,
Back in the 60’s. Fast rainbows flashing in and out of schools
Being cool, avoiding those Vietnamese hooks
And a higher education

Without warning, an attack boat
Races across our bay and stops beside me
Its loud propeller buzzing.
I rise up, grow arms and harpoon the thing
Moby Dick-like with a deadly blow amidships
The porpoise rolls and I flipper back up to her
Hoping the alarming boat has fully sunk,
But knowing that in 9 minutes it will attack again
And we’ll surrender

I heave myself out onto the rock of my pillow
A fish out of water, mouth working noiselessly
In an attempt to produce its first words.
“It’s early” I inform the retreating flood
A cotton mouthed valedictorian, standing in the Bay of Fundee
“Umm” the porpoise replies
And slips quietly back
Beneath the softly retreating waves of Wednesday