Sonnet: Mr Banks Grieves for his Lady.

I took my Lady to the coral sand,
beloved of all. The oiled bodies nesting --
the bloody-headed grief -- we understand
nothing now. If we try to explain the testing
and the dalliance in English words
it goes astray: it was neither love nor whoring
but something in between. The brilliant birds'
feathers in the young men's hair, girls snoring
at noon and waking to stretch like tabby cats;
the brisk trade, a shining nail for a fuck;
the easy unrolling of the tapa mats:
all gone. We turned for home and lost our luck:
Our crew halved by fever; my good hound
Lady dead, in sight of English ground.

The Ghost Ships

When the islander sold the corpse of his son
To Mr Banks of the Royal Society, we can only guess
What the transaction meant to him.

Necklaces of polished shell, breastplates scaled
With mother-of-pearl, cloaks of ten thousand scarlet
And indigo feathers (the death of flocks of tiny birds)

Were sold for a shining nail. For the return of
A stolen sextant, four men were taken hostage,
Men who spent a night in irons expecting

These apparitions of demonstrated savagery
And cruelty would slaughter them.
They had seen them do justice on their own people,

Lashing the white skin off their backs.
What would they do to strangers?
But in the morning, the sextant returned,

These pale, stinking, wolfish men were all
Smiles and affability, and seemed surprised
That they should take it hard.

The ships, the strange backward ships
With towering posts in the middle, instead of
At the ends, gliding in with the wind, reeking

Of urine and frying oil; the ships
Gliding in as if downhill, gliding in like the ghosts
Of friends abandoned in war.