Three cars, three minutes
each time, on time,
just in time
to midnight –
metronome
for the separate island
releasing triptych cars which drive
twenty-five on one paved road
and less on dirt washboards
of rhythmed bumps that punctuate
as fishermen, construction
crews
returning shoppers buck and heave
on sand bunched like bedclothes
on a humid night when unquiet
blows southwest and sleepers
wrestle unbidden chimera
when morning is far and night
herons rasp in the silence
between ship bells
and steepled intonations
from the Old Whaling Church
where island women married
sailors who went to whale
and left wives stretched
between faithfulness
and widowhood –
and again in the morning
quarter-to-seven captains will key
diesel barges, take tousled sleepers
to Edgartown, each time
on time, just in time.
