Oakum
Leave the snarled shaggy oakum; wash your hands of the smell:
All day you have hanked the fiber. . . . The hatches of the west are down.
There is rope and tackle chatter; remonstrance of a channel bell;
Gossipy lights go pointing through the town.
Come, white stars rock in the harbor; the dinghy clucks and strains;
Her sharp bow tastes the phosphor dust, her keel bites green and cold.
To-night all anchors tug at the moon; wet fire stumbles on the chains;
The hushed oars feather into shaky gold.
The thole pins click and stutter. . . . God, for all the wharf-slap, water-slosh
Your hands are itching after oakum, fingers wrenched apart;
The hunger and the hurt of rope is on you: you will never wash
That sticky smell of oakum out of your heart!
All day you have hanked the fiber. . . . The hatches of the west are down.
There is rope and tackle chatter; remonstrance of a channel bell;
Gossipy lights go pointing through the town.
Come, white stars rock in the harbor; the dinghy clucks and strains;
Her sharp bow tastes the phosphor dust, her keel bites green and cold.
To-night all anchors tug at the moon; wet fire stumbles on the chains;
The hushed oars feather into shaky gold.
The thole pins click and stutter. . . . God, for all the wharf-slap, water-slosh
Your hands are itching after oakum, fingers wrenched apart;
The hunger and the hurt of rope is on you: you will never wash
That sticky smell of oakum out of your heart!
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