WOMAN OVERBOARD Poem by Margarida Vale de Gato

MAYDAY I break out: the hard war endures;
empty is the vessel from which I part -
it slacks in the deep, bored by the sway,
a leaking slit, a lack - not in the least
a cork pail with pores made to drift.
I specify: it's terracotta, it cracks
and I am sparse in dense fluidity.
Too late, I know, help will come, if ever
so feebly I flash in obscurity
and the writing does not stay on water;
here I lie: hardly an erasure, less
than a seam the wave will slowly stitch
a slumbering quilt over where I sink.