Poem: Keelhauled

A canvas sail, wind-battered,
heavy with salt and spray,
and I don’t think you have
the lungs to fill it, to move it
we will be buried at sea

There will be no ceremony
the jewelry I gave you, now worthless,
can’t pay for a casket
we will be wrapped in sailcloth, weighted with cannonball
and pushed into the deep where I can only hope
our corpses do not settle next to each other again