A reach
to the Mountaineer,
we gybe round,
stay upright,
despite the squall squaring
up from the Hare.
Running before
the wind, the boat
ahead broaches,
recovers,
death rolls by the lee,
and over-canvased, upturns.
Rescue roars
past. The wind is
perdition’s bellows
just howling for hell.
Clouds blacken for a God
waked Sky as we race to survive.
Detonations
behind us, our crew
says, are two
masts snapped, two
more over with a gust.
Sue and I struggle to
synchronise
helm and sheet. Our crew
cries, I’m afraid,
I can’t do this…
She climbs the gunwale and leaps.
We lurch to windward,
and are mercilessly
pushed over. Submerged,
I continue
to descend, down to the
still quiet beneath the lake’s lid.
Tired… I try to kick,
to loosen
myself from the water’s
drag. I will
not drown, not today –
my jacket obliges
me to surface.
I reach up,
attempt to touch the sky,
altered to
my underwater
eyes. My fingers break through,
are grasped and held fast.