8 February 2026

By Philip Kuepper

Waves cut at the hull
like blades,
yet leave no cut marks,
as the ship slices knots
through the water, the piece of cake of water,
a piece of cake even on not so calm a sea
as this sea in question,
as this sea that is
the setting of this poem.

It is a mix of seas
as I read the water,
seas flowing into seas,
nudged by pressure from oceans,
the ocean in question the Atlantic,
nudging the Mediterranean,
which pushes into the Ionian,
edging the Adriatic,
then pushing into the Aegean,
pushing into the Marmara,
the Bosphorus straight ahead.

All is liquid.
The land, also,
is liquid, Portugal
flowing into Spain flowing
into France flowing
into Italy leaping to Greece
flowing into Turkey.

Cultures rich lay wide
a fabric of the everyday
and the exotic. I pluck
a kalamata olive from its tree
in Greece; a sprig
of rosemary from earthy
Provence. I select a piece
of Turkish delight
at the Istanbul market.
I sip Tuscan wine,
and port at Oporto.
In Spain I sample paper-thin ham,
and midnight dark Bandol.

At what point this ship I am passenger on
became the ship of this poem
I was not able to tell.
I was not paying attention,
my focus deflected
by a flash of insight,
like a fish breaking the surface
of my concentration. Still,
the ship of this poem cuts through
this sea of words, safely, safely
to port, where lies, at anchor
the last line on this page.

(28 January 2026)