Inspired by The Drama of the Scharnhorst by Fritz-Otto Busch, 1956

I am lonely, of course, hung-over, pale, and fat.
Hairs wash out, slither down, thatch up the shower drain.
My teeth hurt. I dream they clatter like ice chips in
The bloody bowl of the white sink, and that
My smile bares purple sockets. I note a stain
On my gray shirt. Patches flake from my skin.
The hardened pinesap cold of Christmas saddens me.
Like vinegar, Easter’s angles of gold light sour.
Outnumbered, pursued, slowing, falling prey to sleep—
I nod into nightmares of a battleship in the North Sea,
Smoking, lost, blind in razoring rain, and losing power,
In desperate flight from twilit storms and destroyers’ sweep,
Hunted, hurt, steaming fast for Norway with torn bow,
Still deadly with guns bent in the screaming snow.

From the new issue of The Dark Horse

, Number 23.