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Off East Point
By John Perrault
Northwest gale from Canada
nails East Point
rivets this spare spit of green
to gray ledge.I manage the loose earth
crumbling at the tipwork my way down shingles
up boulders to the outer edge.Above the undulating sea
I see the long combers comingrising toward the spindle
breaking on the reef-see my father's sunken face out there
white hair thinning in the wind.In the end
his brow no longer sternhe became a calm
upsetting everything in silencestaring off away beyond
his pale blue sheet.Even now
as the blow intensifieshe's drifting off the Point
inside that line of traps-tangling in the warp
without a word.
Copyright 2003, John Perrault
(This poem originally appeared in Puckerbrush Review.)