Sad twin of the river
and sea,

caught in a drift 
of current,

I will sail 
and sail 

past the gaze of   
Rimbaud's cold black pond

where a boy and a boat
drown in a French farmyard,

or Vallejo's caravels,
freighted with sweets, 

floating in a stock pond 
in Peru. Slipping past 

my sailboat  
of sibling rivalry, racing 

my brother's 
across the pale blue pools, 

and finally free
of that tiny galleon

coffined with dead frogs, 
a swamp of dead warriors

setting sail 
into the Anglo-Saxon funeral

of the setting sun.
I will be only myself then, or 

the child that I was,
giving to the river 

the boat that I carved with a knife,
its scrap of dead tree,

its mast made of a branch,
its sail, a pierced 

and resplendent leaf
of autumn. 

At the end, 
the heart is only a 

leaf-wording, 
leave-taking,

that launches its homemade,
handmade boat.