By Emma Large
For my grandfather
There was a ship on the starline
Where the water met its flank, up
And out and up like a quiet breath.
A day, he had dared Day-Lewis,
On its starboard bank; his arrogance brined
With spirits, the curdled wine from the engine
Tank. A day to beat you at your craft. The cleft
In him ran through it, as it did his life,
To fill that floating place: the eccentricity of
His kindness, his fluency for endless speech
That flew without taking shape. I don’t know
How his poem read (the things
I’ll never know) – but he went, gleeful, to the poet’s room
As the sky was laced with morning. Look!
Your craft is mine; smugly, like a new-born;
Standing out on starboard side, yawning in the sun.
I am never too far away from here: this
Is where I am from. The ramblings of a try-hard poet,
On a boat with Day-Lewis at dawn.