Latitudes

If I am not Ulysses, I am his dear, ruthless half brother. Strap me to the mast so I may endure night sirens singing my birth when water broke into a thousand blossoms in a landlocked town of the South, before my name was heard in the womb-shaped world of deep sonorous waters. Storms ran my ship to the brink, & I wasn't myself in a kingdom of unnamed animals & totem trees, but never wished to unsay my vows. From the salt-crusted timbers I could only raise a battering ram or cross, where I learned God is rhythm & spores. If I am Ulysses, made of his words & deeds, I swam with sea cows & mermaids in a lost season, ate oysters & poison berries to approach the idea of death tangled in the lifeline's slack on that rolling barrel of a ship, then come home to more than just the smell of apples, the heavy oars creaking the same music as our bed.