Poet's Prayer

It’s not easy threading the eye of the muse
with #6 black cotton
when the deck is pitching
and the back of the night grows fatter.

Give me a saner birth
with walls leaning inward, pyramid-like,
so that I might be preserved
from mediocrity and style.

Give me a little silk thread
and safe passage round the Horn.
But don't forget to make the seas flame.
And leave a daylight moon upon the sky.

Appeared in Empire SF