28 April 2024

By Philip Kuepper

The boat brought an aura
of mystery with it.
The harbormaster had not been
alerted to its approach.
Anchorage, at best, was
haphazard in the crowded
harbor. Slips were thin
on the ground.
The boat was not one to catch the eye,
and when it did appear,
disappeared among the other boats.
When it dropped anchor,
it faded from sight.
It had bled into the scene.
It was as though it wasn’t
there. The harbor lay calm,
so calm that when
a seagull standing on a piling
turned its head, the whole of the scene
appeared to shift. A whistle,
I could not determine from where, blew.
And in the distance I heard the snap
of pigeons shot to flight
by the whistle’s sudden blast,
a snap of flight that echoed and thinned,
and was sucked quiet over the harbor
near where “The Aura of Mystery” lay at anchor,
a snap of flight that seemed to have
been taken aboard the boat,
like boat people fleeing
the shores of a country in revolt.
‘Was this’, I thought, ‘why
“The Aura of Mystery” had arrived,
to rescue the snap of flight,
caused by the revolting whistle?’
I couldn’t be certain.
I never did see “The Aura of Mystery”.
I had only sensed its presence.
I still do, all these years later,
the boat that was yet wasn’t.

(31 March 2024)