Issue 7, Winter/Spring 2009

THE GOSPEL OF PROGRESS by Amy King

The gospel of progress
lifted and written
so that we may
eat and edify your soul.

The sun lacks in each
a jack-eyed ship under sand,   
a captain of
carpenters, their sailors
whose muscles began
a cipher, the engineer's dream,

And the ocean 
will give you away
if you don’t watch what      
mermaids and drunks 
tempt from things the sea throws up.       

With these long dreams
of whistler’s coves and dead sailor puppets
taking the silver waves
through the canyons of us
built on the backs of briny spines,

We are the penalty,
the forks and the knives
in mausoleums of coffee dregs,
St. Apollonia on her sperm whale steed
flying along this,
her soft soft war
with no swan on fire,
no baby satellite with seals,

Just to rearrange your eyes
so you can see at last
through patterns,
that is our one of many promises.