Convoy

PHILIP BOOTH

CONVOY

One blueberry morning in Maine,

turned home with a full quart pail

in the bilge, I saw a dog seal

on a ledge across from Castine.

In the flooding tide, like a rock

awash on that shoal ridge,

the seal lay stretched on warm ledge,

sunning until my struck oarlock

warned him awake. Aloof

yet inquisitive, he at first arched

his trick back and then as I watched

him upwind, flipped, and slid off.

I ate a berry, sure

he'd surface to see what fool

creature I was. No seal.

Then by my leeward oar,

his wet dog head slid up.

I saw a salt drop drip

off his whiskers and plop,

he was gone. He was fed up

with man, I thought. I was wrong:

he came up to try the port side,

silver-brown, eyes still wide.

An expanding silver ring

of millpond framed him, but beneath

that mirror I could not see.

I looked at him. He

regarded me. Then with deep breath

he dove as if under my skiff,

and I heard a new breath drift

downwind. Only a ring was left

when I looked; my neck was stiff

with watching, l'd turned too slow,

and as my mind encompassed

such double luck, I focused

on my error. His alter ego

or twin had submerged to explore.

Only one seal or his true love

surfaced in corners of

my sight, for a full half-hour.

I never saw both: the sport

was submarine. When a starboard

nose broke water, then, with a hard

seal slap, a tail submerged to port.

That was my convoy home: a seal

splash (not caught crab or riptide)

rippling one or the other side.

At least one seal was real.

And I, least wise in Maine,

with double delight and half dread

flooding two good eyes and one head,

rowed home on my single plane.