To John Adams From Samuel Osgood, 23 October 1775 Poem by George Sawaya

Addressing the first war-time application of a submarine

Everything is auburn now, gummed in clumsy light
sieved through the clouds; the riflemen wax their black
cold-cracked stocks with hog fat and watch the bay.

Everyone has heard of the water machine.

Our hearts are greased with jealously, the king
demon, wishing we too could crack our bodies
back to kernels, squeeze into

that shell: we have envisioned marbled plates
vein-bound to upholstered iron fins, and glands strung
like lanterns over congress floor that, when

squeezed, auger torpedo (is it called?) to stern
and blast red coats beyond the attraction of the earth,
winked out of sight. I wish it might succeed.

A quill of Godly fire, plumbed like this pen in writing,
is everyday expected here in camp to rise just past
Governors Island like an axle, liberty's paraph.

We are taken, also, with the thought of being
the powder in the keg-mines peppered down
the Delaware; of being that which bursts when

devious prow dare penetrate our sovereignty. Some of
the men have even practiced exploding. There is a new
admiration in camp for all the creatures of the ocean especially

the man squeezed from the Madonna of the water like a rose.