Paul D. McGlynn
 

Night settles in, a dark mirage.
Handful of stars, grand commotion back in town:
Tourists from Michigan with shopping bags,
College girls bright with rum, breathless, golden;
No Shakespeare tonight, no algebra.
On the Gulf, dim winks from fishing boats,
Pipings of nightbirds down the shore.
A cruise ship of a thousand lights,
Pagan goddess, rival to the moon,
Eases over the south horizon.

Out there, Venezuela, Cartagena,
Horse Latitudes, drowned bones of sailors.
Farther, perhaps, idling on some strand
Beneath the Southern Cross, a poet stares this way,
Wondering what sleeps below these seas,
Who walks here in the northern night.