Over the flaking tide
The ferry creeps to the dock.  
Its braggy bullhorn taps
The lighthouse like an egg.

The lighthouse sweeps its funnel—
Oak loom in relief,
Stitching and repairing
Stem and branch and leaf.

Whisky clears the vision
And helps the Dippers steer:
The pilot twists the bottle
And squints to find the pier.

Gently by the buoy,
To the tune of grunt and glug,
He juggles with both horn
And helm and emerald dug.

From lips that cannot kiss: 
Hail Mary! and he’s home.
The bottle’s Latin motto
Descends from vatic Rome

By ways too dark to tell.
He fumbles for his log—
Numerals, blur-eyed lines—
And signs it in a fog.

Polaris stays the course.
An LED shears off
A nest or a lost sailor’s 
Cap. White feathers strew the wharf.