Sixty Days at Sea

Smiles are hard to see now.
Men keep looking out to sea,
Searching with a haunted gaze.

Father tells me to keep quiet,
Mother stays in our cabin now.
We are eating beans twice daily.

A whale chase happened Monday,
Some exciting tag game ensued.
Captain's crew in a longboat, shouting.

They didn't catch Jonah's captor,
Men cried, such was the disappointment.
Father made me go below again then.

Mother has stopped eating her meals,
She claims to be tired of the beans,
Makes Father and I eat her portions.

After dark, I slipped out to topside,
The men were drinking and shouting
Things about our rudder master, and food.

I tell Father. He takes his flintlock grimly.
We find the Captain near the longboats,
Sword points guiding him aboard one.

Father, grabbed as he fires, drops first mate.
Then, gored by a rapier of fate, Father's
lifeblood drains. I Become half-orphaned.

Captain rebels, gets his foot hacked off.
He, Mother, I, and the bad cook set adrift,
Float four days, rain for food, and that bird.

Shored in our sleep, on our new island keep.
Captain Crusoe, hobbled but able, now pegged.
Friday, I think, is the day we make fire, smile.