La Chalupa, the Boat

I am twenty,

drifting in la chalupa,

the blue boat painted with roses,

white lilies—

No, not drifting, I am poling

my way into my life. It seems

like another life:

There were the walls of the mind.

There were the cliffs of the mind,

There were the seven deaths,

and the seven bread-offerings—

Still, there was still

the little boat, the chalupa

you built once, slowly, in the yard, after school—