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Sarte's Walking the Plank

The plank is narrow,
more narrow than when he started;  
he could slip off at any time.
 
The wood is slick, too,
threatening again a premature plunge.
 
He steadies himself, attempts to think:
He could try appeals to erstwhile friends,
 
but those at the rail are stony-faced,
young and calloused, just as he had been.
 
He seeks a deity he’d always disdained,
tries to see himself ascending, not plunging.
 
But terror tramples piety.
 
Seeing no salvation, he straightens up;
his knickerbockers, he hopes, conceal
knocking  knees and dripping crotch;
 
and in a mustering of bravado he resolves
to do a spectacular splashless  half gainer
Into the cold black depths.
 
But before he can carry out his resolution,
a bored ex-shipmate tilts  the plank.
Other works by G.F. Braun...



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