At this wharf there are no grand landings to speak of. <br />Red and orange barges list and blister <br />Shackled to the dock, outmoded, gaudy, <br />And apparently indestructible. <br />The sea pulses under a skin of oil. <br /> <br />A gull holds his pose on a shanty ridgepole, <br />Riding the tide of the wind, steady <br />As wood and formal, in a jacket of ashes, <br />The whole flat harbor anchored in <br />The round of his yellow eye-button. <br /> <br />A blimp swims up like a day-moon or tin <br />Cigar over his rink of fishes. <br />The prospect is dull as an old etching. <br />They are unloading three barrels of little crabs. <br />The pier pilings seem about to collapse <br /> <br />And with them that rickety edifice <br />Of warehouses, derricks, smokestacks and bridges <br />In the distance. All around us the water slips <br />And gossips in its loose vernacular, <br />Ferrying the smells of cod and tar. <br /> <br />Farther out, the waves will be mouthing icecakes —- <br />A poor month for park-sleepers and lovers. <br />Even our shadows are blue with cold. <br />We wanted to see the sun come up <br />And are met, instead, by this iceribbed ship, <br /> <br />Bearded and blown, an albatross of frost, <br />Relic of tough weather, every winch and stay <br />Encased in a glassy pellicle. <br />The sun will diminish it soon enough: <br />Each wave-tip glitters like a knife.<br /><br />Sylvia Plath<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-winter-ship/
