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69 Jackstaff, Jackstraw (tack and jib) These the darkling times (that’s plain), these the gathering seas, the bounding Maine. I walk on sunken ships, hip hop, wrap myself in riggings, skin, swing among the mizzen, Captain Blood. (I’m in like Flynn.) I John Paul Jones. I Moby Dick. I wail. I win. I Lusitania, Arizona (still got grace, got slick.) Been blown up, sunk low, the gonfalons a skein strung out like hopheads, hoptoads in the pouring rain. I dig this place. I plot my course (my graph, my spade), shaped up, shipped out. I hover here. I Everglade. I King Canute. Rock-kneed, I wade, (behold, betide) and see. But it is always sea. I cross, I cross. I albatross. I crow’s nest constantly. The land I seek is in your arms, your lighthouse eyes, a rock-ribbed farm where things take seed, arise, an island then, a shoal, a spit, a lifeboat filled with loam, a plug, a stop (we’d make a go of it), a home. For now (horn blow) I do what Romans do, Horatio. I roam. ...

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