Ilse, tonight, trapped in blankets I dose
my bronchial cough with John’s expensive port
while the waves bite at the boulders where the fraught
crabs flee. Any port in a storm. And those
words, my bad joke, return tonight to pose
unwanted questions. Who has not been caught
and held, a lone prisoner in the short-
ening hours till dawn? And now your clothes
no longer lie like body counts from wars
we fought across this down, where’s my refuge?
“I should have been a pair of ragged claws.”
I’ll get crabby my own way, drunk; deluge
my throat with whisky, not sweet wine. Of course
you care. Of course I know you may refuse.