Poor Little Orphinks

This was Popeye
at absolute low-tide.

Swee’ Pea kidnapped,
only himself to blame,

trying to sleep
on a creaking dock, alone.

All the shore exposed
and the smell of the brine.

But, even at that moment,
a too-skinny girl

with unexplainable hair
and shoes all the other

Sweet Haven girls
would die for,

was falling in love with him.
Olive is the tide

coming back in
and lifting

the boats again.
Olive is the tide

and the tide has
to come back in,

it has a deal with the moon.
Poor, little orphinks

just you wait.
The tide will come back in.

It has to, it has
a deal with the moon

and coming back in
is its solemn obligashkin’.

–September 4, 2016