by Harrison Fisher

And gurly grew the sea
–Anon.

Such a large convocation of people
who are sworn to the sea,
those who sailed, steamed, or rowed,
others who manned guns or dropped lifeboats,
who flung or scooped flotsam and jetsam,

who pulled living and dead alike
from calm or rough waters,

some who put gaffs to the monstrous,
suckered arms of krakens, pricking them
off the deck, and others who had
visitant undersea lights
lap them all night long—

they are all here, shaking hands,
stepping into embraces.

And when the captains of ships
that have famously gone down
find each other, as they always do,
they sit together at the captains’ table,

which, in a moment upended,
seems to rise sideways into the air,
captains and chairs aloft,

and down they go through the floor,
heading for the rattle of basement lockers.
Nearby tables hush to the plunge

as the bandleader stoutly urges his musicians
deeper into a cold fantasia,
and the room takes on
notated water.

Harrison Fisher held a NEA fellowship in poetry for 1978. He has published twelve chapbooks and full-length collections of poems, most recently Poematics of the Hyperbloody Real. In 2025, Fisher had new work appear in numerous magazines, including BlazeVOX, Misfitmagazine, Slipstream, Trampoline, and Uppagus. He lives in upstate New York.