12,778. I'LL BE WRITING HOME NOW

I'LL BE WRITING 

HOME NOW

Dear Mother and Father : Before

I drown (this ship is sinking now

and I've nowhere to go. I am last

left alive, and only salt-water is

left), you should know what a

beautiful blue the sky is, an

azure of something like Greece.

The dark, velvet black of the

night comes close. Perhaps. Yet,

too many stars then spoil the

dark. This is somehow a daytime

difference. I am nauseous again,

and apt to vomit on this ledger.

But. What is it for anyway? I am

such a fool. It will sink with me,

and, as only paper and cardboard,

the water shall have its spite with

that too. No one shall ever see what

I am putting here. Least you both.

Let it not be said I have not tried.

-

I remember many things : Your 

faces, your smiles, your funny 

doings. As I was young, before I 

set sail to this miserable ending. 

Perhaps you can overlook my 

own faults as, in memory, I

gloss over so much of yours, 

as I see them now, from the 

'now,' as it is, for good or for

bad. I grimace as I write this;

my leg is very swollen. I think

it may be broken. A terrible

blow hit me, unseen, in the

roiling turn of storm, before

the day before the last.

-

Let it not be said

I have not tried.