Larry Schug
Ship in a Bottle
I am not guided or protected
by pulsing lights along the coastline.
My paper sails hang on toothpick-thin masts,
unfurled, but not billowed.
Becalmed in the doldrums inside this glass,
ropes of twine, lie coiled on my deck,
hatches open to an empty place
that carries neither cargo nor treasure
but is, nonetheless, called a hold.
No sailors climb the rigging to an empty crow's nest,
there being no pirates or whales to watch for
in this ocean of stale, unsalted air, this bottle of musty oxygen.
Life boats and anchors are superfluous,
there are no lives to save, no harbor in which to drop anchor.
Crewless, I sail the vast Sea of Imagination
that moved the fingers of a landlocked shipwright.
Bio
Larry Schug is retired after a life of various kinds of physical labor. He currently volunteers as a college writing tutor, though that opportunity is currently on hold due to the pandemic. He lives with his wife, dog and cats near a large tamarack bog in St. Wendel Township, Minnesota