"as mariners go", Wei Khai Lim

as mariners go, there is no more need
to narrate. when the still morning goes out
in its grey sandals, no longer will you
be here – nor your daughters, nor both your sons
you leave in the wards. as they began, then,
as they will be. they will attend their phones
for another call from you. just one more,
between patients, whom they will tell of you
un-endingly, like sailors who follow
an albatross into the plastic gulf
with their squinting eyes. but you have already
slipped away, stopping only for Lethe,
where you will home, like seabirds, with instinct
that takes the peaceful place of memory.