your sea shanty by Mickey J. Corrigan

You wake up with the Irish flu
again
limp around your rocking berth
pale at the mouth
parched, bone-rattled
you check to see
what's left since the tide receded
the jetsam and flotsam of your night
in the deeps of the underwater
sandbar you inhabit.

You blame your landlubber genes
again
perk up the percolator
top off the green and black
with hairs of the old dog
that bit all the old sailors—
your father
his father 
and his.

You reel out into the future
that is the past
the present all-consuming
the oncoming tidal heaves
guttural seasick sweats.

Yet you know nothing ashore 
changes
the life affliction
with which you infect yourself
each day 
while you weave and wave
and swear off the next time—
you sing goodbye to all that,
never, never 
again 

and again…

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes tropical noir with a dark humor. Her poetry has been widely published in literary journals and chapbooks. In 2020, Grandma Moses Press released Florida Man. Her novel The Physics of Grief puts the fun back in funerals while taking a serious look at the process of mourning (QuoScript, UK, 2021).