we do not join the navy
we are the navy that sails
through cities, that docks on your sidewalks

with ragged boots and jackets
for masts and bedrolls for gunwales

our noses are prows our behinds
are poop decks our smells
are dead salmon

what you shun and escape
and leave for rats to ravage

no address necessary when you’re lost
at sea today and tomorrow
no cleats no anchors no chocks

we are unraveled lines
rejects with severed keels

no need for a cell phone
but why call home when home
travels from cardboard scrap

to cardboard scrap, recedes
with seaweeds, bounces off rocks

you are the rising tide
that shifts us from beach to beach
we drift we survivors of undertows

and squalls of westerlies, rain
and sleet storms at dawn

call us the unemptied bilge
or boats run aground
washed-up crafts that have 

lost their craft that cannot
regain their float

John Davis is the author of Gigs, Guard the Dead and The Reservist. His work has appeared in DMQ Review, Iron Horse Literary Review and Terrain.org. He lives on an island in the Salish Sea and performs in several bands.