Michael McInnis- A Poem

Come, Dead, Call Me Home From Sea

Come, Dead,
call me home from sea
tattooed and pierced
Diego Garcia, Philippines,
Persian Gulf and
Kamchatka, Samoa,
cannibals, head hunters,
sharks and white whales,
storm tossed and
born in November
so that my soul
is never soothed
in the mysteries
of tropical sins.
Come, Dead,
collect your own
from a blazing
wilderness,
a wet meadow, a
copse of paper birch,
the infernal sea sullen,
rising and falling in
a littoral language
already ciphered and
decoded.
Come, Dead,
call me, please.
Ishmael?
Maybe.
Call me back
weathered and creased
aged and cracked
wrapped in a sheet
committed to the deep,
beckoning from
beneath that
great shroud
of waves, calling
come, come, come.