Night Mooring

Glaring shafts

Of yellow and red

Pierce the star-shivering night.

Constant chaos

Of churning water

Drips to the beat

Of the engine’s valved voice.

Deckhand, ordered to action,

Wrestles thick mooring rope

To Loop the docking bollard,

Making fast the tie to land.

Now manacled,

The paddleboat is estranged

From the living river.

Unmoored flotsam floats past,

Giving the illusion

That the boat is still moving.

A nighthawk gliding in fluid gyres,

Mocks the ship’s engine

With small mechanical cries

While shivering stars resume

their rippling on dark waters.