From a Shipyard in a Bottle

bourne 85 Daniel Bourne From a Shipyard in a Bottle "A bird can break his beak doing this kind of work"— Gdansk, author unknown piece by piece a crane was assembled flapping above a dock squeaking from lack of grease lack of feathers and fertilized eggs picking up other hard pieces building a nest of ships but who put it in this bottle it took the patient hands of a general their armored fingertips maneuvering for the buttons of the enemy it took the practiced hands of a banker who knows the weight of brick and meat who knows how to sweep a landscape off the table and leave buildings and goblets in place you can imagine looking out from any kind of bottle the distortion the thought that we're a message to the world well here's the crumpled paper this is a bottle whose neck gets narrower outward our claws keep stretching made of steel though we can't break through they tell us build build ships ships sailing outside the jagged edges of our necks ...