Four Poems

Though you won't feel again
     the jib sheet
scalding your hand, or coil
     it again
around the cleat,
     or be able to read
from the shiver
     of a sail
the precise crisis -
     timing the rudder,
coming about,
     reaching at high tilt,
hauled tight
     against the slapping river -
your discontinuedness
     is not yet felt.

All around you
...