Human Cargo
I guided the wire and the great piston arms of the davits, first for one boat and
then the other
And lowered them gently into the calm black sea
We watched as they became just red and green navigation lights in the distance while
Pearl blue clouds tumbled softly along the ship’s hull and
We waited for them to return from the navy boat Leeuwin.
They came back, the two fast just boats, bows proudly riding the slow swell,
and rolled in alongside. The coxswain connected to the davit wire and, gently,
gently, I plucked them, pop, from the yielding sea womb and back up into the
davit arms, brimming with a secret cargo,
As wild eyed as bad men,
Huddled together,
Diminutive in the bright orange life jackets, like strange midnight nestlings
looking up, white eyed and hollow cheeked,
Those lean-boned sons of Bangladesh,
Famine driven into the sea.
*Ciaran MacLennan was born in the North of Ireland and raised in Brisbane. He is a Merchant Seaman and Poet.
