Rebecca Gethin: a poem

Ghost Ship

No one but she is aware

of the whale baleen

inserted in her stay

like a sword in a scabbard.

He'd carved his ship

with a forget me not

into the cartilage

then sent it to her

from Nantucket

before the Forget Me Not

sailed north

and was abandoned.

The news took years

to reach her.

It still holds her body,

sculpting her

into a walking statue.

Softened by her warmth,

the ship moves over

the waves he carved

and presses her form

into shape

somewhere below her heart.

Rebecca Gethin has written five poetry publications and has been a Hawthornden Fellow and a Poetry School tutor. Messages was a winner in the first Coast to Coast to Coast pamphlet competition. Vanishings has just been published by Palewell Press. She blogs at http://www.rebeccagethin.wordpress.com.