The Hulls of White Yachts

The hulls of white yachts riding the orange water

of the marina at dusk, and, under their bowsprits the chuckle

of the chain in the stained sea; try to get there

before a green light winks from the mast and the foc’sle

blazes with glare, while dusk hangs in suspension

with crosstrees and ropes and a like-livid sky

with its beer stein of cloud froth touched by the sun,

as stars come out to watch the evening die.

In this orange hour the light reads like Dante,

three lines at a time, their symmetrical tension,

quiet bars rippling from the Paradiso

as a dinghy writes lines made by the scanty

metre of its oar strokes, and we, so

mesmerized can barely talk. Happier

than any man now is one who sits drinking

with his lifelong companion under the winking

stars and the steady arc lamp at the end of the pier.