End of the Cruise

Ready to disembark,

We're mostly puff and grey.

Who else can sail this ark?

Who else afford such play?

Our bags are overpacked

Protruding like our flesh,

The proof of nothing lacked

That money can enmesh.

Before we booked, we viewed

Pictures in which the young

And svelte declared the moods

We hoped to move among.

We fidget, wait to be

Called back to land once more,

Selves dragged from the sea

We meant to leave on shore.

David Berman

© David Berman.  Reprinted by
permission of the author.