The voyage was long, so long.
Disease made us panic.
Someone was thrown
from the steamship deck
into the blue-black sea —
it was me.
I sank down, down.
I saw skeletons and hulls of clipper ships
half-buried on the ocean floor.
I struggled to swim. I flailed.
Then I saw you —
an unexpected lifeboat.
A survival craft, not a rescue.
We sustain life. We ride
over the crests of waves
just before they break.
We’re safe.
We move with wind and current,
together.
