The Sailboat

The Sailboat


The very pill
his shrink prescribes
for his depression
suppresses his appetite
so successfully
he eats one meal
every other day.


When I hugged him last Wednesday,
his shoulder blades
almost cut me,
stretching his skin
like a chef skinning a chicken.
His oversized heart
presses against his breastbone


like a scarlet macaw
tearing at the bars
of an undersized cage,
fierce as his mind’s falcon
tethered to the wrist of his skull.
On his latest canvas,
a sailboat nearly wrests a shape


distinct from the rolling waves
hellbent on destruction.
The violent blues
are so well executed
they’re almost beautiful,
doing in the pill
of his ghostly little boat.

Larry D. Thomas

Posted over on Radiant Turnstile