Because I still think about Alexander Supertramp
Today, for McCandless, who set fire
to his cash & lost his body in Alaska
without reading one word his watchers
portioned to his choices, generous
or paltry—for him, I lit a single
one dollar bill in my backyard, joined
by birds & dog & greening trees.
The ash end of the dollar curled up
while a red ember smoldered across
Illuminati iconography, shrinking
all to ash. I watched Washington’s face
get small & turn white. I wasn’t
buying lotto or paying a panhandler.
That burned dollar went extinct, out
of play. I felt a suicide. That’s how
I found him. He’s gone again already.
Is this how Darwin did it?
Sardined
aboard the open aft deck,
sealed in makeshift travel foulies,
I share body heat with German strangers
and submit to double diesel engines roaring. The boat
guns hard up six-foot swell, slams harder
down the back, climbs again, again,
again. Puerto Ayora, behind us,
vanished half an hour ago.
Isla Isabela
waits two more ahead.
Between is stacking water.
Iron sky. Pale Pacific. Waves
spray across the windward gunwale.
To soothe myself, I summon words, lurch pitch crest sink,
regretting that I never told the folks
at home I’d sail today, or
where I’m going.
I left
my name on land,
printed in a ledger. This passage,
paid in cash, is traceless. When my neighbor
leans and heaves into the plastic bag on both our knees,
I alliterate, snarling sky, cursing clouds, wicked wind.
Even Darwin got depressed here. Then,
at last—a frigatebird flashes
portside. I peel
my body
free
to squint ahead, toward
the horizon. I want to see this island
first, and call it, just like
in the old
days.
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