John Swain- A Poem

From the Hull

Clematis hanging

in the sea rain

with the winter gannet 

tilting immense

above the grey breaks.

My grandfather calls

from a wooden hull

with the pitching waters

in his throat of storm

and then the blue

a calm and still,

the line and mast 

my cross and gallows.

Scent of the beach

on the back of my hands

as I swim the dig

of cold bones the ocean

flow of a progeny.

John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Least Bittern Books published his second collection, Under the Mountain Born.