Tonight watching the waves
break over Dead Woman's
Shoals quite a ways away
through the windows
of the Riverview
where I once thought the bar
was the bottom of a boat
scarred deep from the drink
on the rocks and sand bars
until I realized it was a coffin
shellacked black
as the hazards of marriage
between a waterman
and a lonely woman
black as the soft leather
of the stool climbed
and kicked away
black as the water
the night
you found her there
still swinging
from the rope
of the nets
she repaired
for her man
while he was away
chasing the catch
deep in the darkness
of the black waves.