Sensitive Times

When the boats washed up surfless from wars We dived from the United Fruit Company wharves Like gulls naked in the light of their eyes Marking where the shining metals fell Below the howling hoots, and kiting scarves We plucked our lunches from the sands Then finless rose to wind again They were entertained by our necessity And all we worth peripheral to the hilarity That refused us a place of dignity then Opportunity to display ourselves as men And sometimes my being had no presence there I was a shadow in the jungle, an image of fear Harboring animistic beliefs that could transform Margins of civilize safety and shatter norms.