4 Vessels

Each text vessel appears in blocks and end words are honored, as each is also a poem whose line endings are gathered at the end of the longer project as a series of floating fragments. Vessel 2 = 2 equations balanced over each other. Text of poem:

Vessel 1 Super sonar alert: a ship 100+ yrs gone traced under water! Not a lost iron tanker. Only 2 0’s on the timeline, so not a skiff holding amphorae. Towline broken, 3 masts, billowed sails gone. So frigidly preserved. Known whole from a cloudy photo of its sister-vessel (the Nivana) Dear one, what pulled you under? I only twice dipped my cupped hand in cold water.

Vessel 2 Weight of body in air Density = ………………………………………… Weight of equal volume of water Weight of body in air Specific Gravity= …………………………………………..…………………………………………. Weight in air—---Weight in water = ratio of mass of body to volume of water it displaces at 4*

Vessel 3 Backed into shadows deepening night’s jetty, we swoon into each other: They drank this with a reed, out of the vessel that held the beer, upon which they saw the barley swim. Xenophanes X, observer of tipplers, is from Colophon (translated from Greek as summit or finishing stroke). In a book, a colophon = last facts about production or a printer's stamp, as on the spine. Your sleeping spine curves into itself because the heat’s not caught on yet. Ah, there. Opening thighs. Another mole mountain. A little mark where my breath touched. You are my vassal, my wassail, my sel/ves. But of course we are talking not only about love but means of production. Luckily there’s a colophon factory to help:

[images of different type faces of V] I’m a little teapot, short and stout - Here is my handle, here is my spout. When I get all steamed up, hear me shout: Tip me over and pour me out.

Vessel 4 ship in bottle bird in wind tongue in mouth (another’s) Wreck 2 + more survivors. A long slide under: this vessel moved then crushed in layers as the ice flexed. Sussed out by undersea drones. I take drones to mean that at least mechanically, birds could learn to fly not only above but below (or does this = fish?). Water streaks down a wall: what’s leaking now? I’d say the future doesn’t exist but something glitters. I’d say the past doesn’t exist though you remember some and I do too. But just last week I dropped a slide (apollo at the temple of zeus) over gravesite E (empty?) and it's gone now. BRRRMBRRRM. Maybe things fly around underground more than we imagine. Maybe we just lie down and wait. Since I’ve been sick, V adds, cupping hand near mouth = still need oxygen.

[image of a spoon with netting attached to handle and bowl]

Image Descriptions

Each text vessel appears in blocks and end words are honored, as each is also a poem whose line endings are gathered at the end of the longer project as a series of floating fragments. Vessel 2 = 2 equations balanced over each other.

Text of poem: Vessel 1

Super sonar alert: a ship 100+ yrs gone traced under water! Not a lost iron tanker. Only 2 0’s on the timeline, so not a skiff holding amphorae. Towline broken, 3 masts, billowed sails gone. So frigidly preserved. Known whole from a cloudy photo of its sister-vessel (the Nivana) Dear one, what pulled you under? I only twice dipped my cupped hand in cold water.

Vessel 2

Weight of body in air Density = ………………………………………… Weight of equal volume of water Weight of body in air Specific Gravity= …………………………………………..…………………………………………. Weight in air——Weight in water = ratio of mass of body to volume of water it displaces at 4*

Vessel 3

Backed into shadows deepening night’s jetty, we swoon into each other: They drank this with a reed, out of the vessel that held the beer, upon which they saw the barley swim. Xenophanes X, observer of tipplers, is from Colophon (translated from Greek as summit or finishing stroke). In a book, a colophon = last facts about production or a printer’s stamp, as on the spine. Your sleeping spine curves into itself because the heat’s not caught on yet. Ah, there. Opening thighs. Another mole mountain. A little mark where my breath touched. You are my vassal, my wassail, my sel/ves. But of course we are talking not only about love but means of production. Luckily there’s a colophon factory to help:

[images of different type faces of V]

I’m a little teapot, short and stout – Here is my handle, here is my spout. When I get all steamed up, hear me shout: Tip me over and pour me out.

Vessel 4

ship in bottle bird in wind tongue in mouth (another’s) Wreck 2 + more survivors. A long slide under: this vessel moved then crushed in layers as the ice flexed. Sussed out by undersea drones. I take drones to mean that at least mechanically, birds could learn to fly not only above but below (or does this = fish?). Water streaks down a wall: what’s leaking now? I’d say the future doesn’t exist but something glitters. I’d say the past doesn’t exist though you remember some and I do too. But just last week I dropped a slide (apollo at the temple of zeus) over gravesite E (empty?) and it’s gone now. BRRRMBRRRM. Maybe things fly around underground more than we imagine. Maybe we just lie down and wait. Since I’ve been sick, V adds, cupping hand near mouth = still need oxygen.

[image of a spoon with netting attached to handle and bowl]

For more SomaFlights, you can purchase the Spring 2023 print issue here.

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