Though the the street sleeper isn’t moving, his paperback lies beside him.
I have a paperback on World War Two in my bag.
It is always late in the German supermarket, always an hour before closing.
Processed food can bring you home for a time.
I read somewhere that GIs in the 40s would trade all of their rations for Coca Cola, to bring them home.
The sake drunk on the last night of the Yamato brought them home.
Ten-Go, like drunk nights with you in the light of the dorm room, talking of adolescent histories.
Was it the same theme? The same needless things young people say? In the drunk night between the watertight compartments. Shut in when she rolled to port.
The water rumbling like my insides, gurgling through the catwalks and over causeways.
You know, It’s been some time since I’ve seen the ocean.
Since I was in Galway I think.
I was alone then- I stayed the night, and walked to the harbor in the hour before my train.
It was the closest I’d felt to home.
And I put together scenes and struggles together in a way, that made everything become true and together for a moment.
Freighter- Clyde Puffer.
Lost Liner- Empress of Ireland
Fairey Swordfish biplane- high above that miserable wreck brandishing an Iron Cross,
cresting the waves to make one last run before the Germans scuttle her.
I was left wordless on the dock, looking out over the ocean.
Carry me back, in some form or another to when peace is declared,
and the Atlantic is hushed,
when I find my way back to where I am from.
Ryan Shockey Davis 