Dead Sea Captains

half the contents of a forgotten pocket

Folded into a tear stained hanker chief and tucked into a forgotten pocket lies a graveyard. The pearly smog rolls over the gravestones like a sea of melancholy, half condensed tears and split milk. Dawn does not sing but sigh, her eyes are drooped and grey. Her breath shudders through the trees, sending their leaves pirouetting, their crunch like a siren's song to the misanthrope. Below the glass tipped grass lies an empty coffin. A bell chimes the song of heartbreak. the sea captain's body is down down down, lying in between the great whale's ribs as they  bend into a cathedral of sorts (but then again only Jonah would really know). A slow waltz still rings in the sea captain's corroding ears, it still quivers there, playing like a broken record over the voices of mermaids and whales (they slip like cold silk into his tomb).

The sea captain's dreams are haunted by a ship's worth of frozen shoes, left motionless on the black water's crystalline face, the icebergs have bitten the dance out of their molded soles. Now only the icebergs waltz in time with the music, mocking him, like sugar cubes that will not dissolve into his milky tea. They continue swirling as his eyes slowly rot.