Nautilus Ninety North

by Edward Baranosky

Artwork: Jetty Beach, Cynthia Yatchman

Things are always at their best in their beginning.
--Blaise Pascal

Herring gulls, glaucous gulls.
black-headed gulls, all-white arctic
gulls; fairy terns and kittiwakes¾
the sailors are in port, shore-leave
from the big ships lying-to,

drawing the land sharks
camp followers, barracuda
and the big gray vans of the Shore Patrol
picking up the early unconscious
and the lost late wanderers.

breaking up overlapping brawls
from train to bus to Back-Bay pub
rolling from door to door, listing to port,
and listening to the scuttlebutt,
the loose lips that can sink ships.

In the dark corner of a bar,
a massive sailor kicks back alone
against a table; depth-charge in hand,
a beer with a whiskey chaser,
a submariner insignia.

A dark shadow slips,
silent running, deep under the arctic
ice, sonar’s constant searching
for the point with one way-out
rotating with the planet.

Secret AWACs shuttle
their awaited signals from the surface
code readers; undetected silence
then a loud murmur crosses the bars.
and even the brawls pause.

The submariner has departed
the beer glass unnoticed as the chaos lingers.
overturned whiskey glass placed by
a gull’s feather leaving a damp scrawl,
Nautilus Ninety North.