First to Come Ashore (poem)

First to Come Ashore

Betrayal and surprise are reasonable things

Now we live on Ocean in floating boils of aluminum

Open hatch, rope in on Drop Days inflatable rings

Netted centers packed, and water

Better to wash with and drink

(outside stuff desalinated, never wholly uncontaminated)

Crackers and raisins in tight six-day containers

Bio-decomposable plastics

That turtles have learned to eat

And dried chipped beef a sad SOS joke

No one tells these days

But everyone is a beggar, work is given out

On a first-to-come-ashore-on-high-ground basis

Our seafaring tents have strong antennae

We video ourselves and tell strangers stories

Betrayal and surprise are reasonable things

To fear

By day, of course, when the sun is harsh

When its rays steam the ocean, cyclonic

Rushing a thing we remember from trees

When you had grass to set your feet and leaves on it

Leading currents brewing ahead of cloudy days

Autumn

We remember that

And liking rain for the smell

Now, although our pods can right themselves

It means the temporary end of contact

It means, if you prefer not to live alone, strapping in

Suffering company through a nauseating ride

Well, we know

People fight

There are these lonely ones, encountered

These random pods, alike to ours but

Still, quiet…tells a primitive sense

Seabirds come, but the sheathing won’t let them in

First to Come Ashore

The Good People

(2019, Stephanie Foster)