—J. M. W. Turner
In the painting, there are outflung legs displaying manacles.
The night is a tempest, a burgundy-black storm of corpses.
Story is, off the coast of Jamaica a captain (for the insurance)
jettisoned 132 men, women, and children. A British captain.
By 1840, the year of the Turner painting, only the Americans
and Spaniards are in the business of running slaves. However,
the artist risks everything lest we forget Captain Collingwood
and what we promise after we ask and answer right questions
about ourselves.See those reaching with small hands toward
blind-God as the truly lucky climb onto lifeboats of the dead?
Of course the fins are featured to remind us there are sharks,
a sea of teeth pearled with ovations of blood and moonlight.
Shorebirds sentry the sharks; some of the birds are airborne.
The fury of their wings makes a second cauldron of the air.
Previously published in Hillbilly Guilt (2021, Hidden River Arts)