West South West

Since I was born in Portsmouth, west south west
Would mean the Solent, then the open sea:
A child let loose on Nelson's Victory
I fantasized his last quixotic quest,
Trafalgar's carnage-where he cooly dressed
As gaudily as if he wished to be
The natural target for an enemy,
And willed the bullets to his medaled chest.

Hardly a gesture I could emulate.
My west south west was more a stealthy game
To be elsewhere, escape, rewrite my fate
As one who got away. But all the same
I find I walk the shattered deck and wait
For when the marksmen see me, and take aim.

 

© Dick Davis

(from Belonging, Ohio, 2002)