La Chalupa, the Boat

I am twenty, 
drifting in la chalupa, 
the blue boat painted with roses,
white lilies—

No, not drifting, I am poling
my way into my life.         It seems
like another life:

There were the walls of the mind.
There were the cliffs of the mind,
There were the seven deaths,
and the seven bread-offerings—

Still, there was still
the little boat, the chalupa
you built once, slowly, in the yard, after school—