Losing my way one heaving, stormy night,
I blundered onto the bridge – where perhaps
I was not meant to be – and there took fright:
the wheel untended, no one there! Who keeps
the watch? my former naval voice called out,
unheard by winking, clicking instruments.
Green water shuddered ship and me. I sensed
my body then, the self-adjusting beat
of pumping blood, the intake and exhaust
of breath – which all was being done for me
as it has for decades, faultlessly.
So where and when do I come in? The tossed
and trembling ship! and who is meant to man it?
And who or what has just composed this sonnet?
Frank Dux