Jacket

Jacket IVAN KLEIN I will make a jacket of separation and death, white like a shroud, like the walls of the same color that close in on a man’s life and speak to him of the lunatic death of his father In obscene tongues– damnable walls– And the world will not spare a dab of black paint to color it over. No, it will call me a Jonah instead; an evil eye, and mistake me for the ghost of its bad conscience, bringing bad luck to a ship made for fire and death, a ship of the Anti-Christ flying the colors of our nation. Way up to the top of the royal main yard I will go to search the stars, and the jacket will surround me, blind me and send me down to the shattering sea. I cut myself free from deadly bondage with my great sailor’s knife, C  2009 The Authors Journal compilation C  2009 The Melville Society and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. L E V I A T H A N A J O U R N A L O F M E L V I L L E S T U D I E S 85 P O E M the jacket pierced by the lances of my shipmates mistaking it for a shark ready to devour me. They will take their naked fellow up, his back as yet unlashed, unstriped, as it sinks to the bottom And only I will know its invisible, unbreakable presence, The hold it will have on me for all time. 86 L E V I A T H A N ...