The Cancer Bureau

The nurse paints on my puffed belly

The Load line or the Plimsoll mark.

She says it will rise and fall through salt water

And where the tidal streams

Connive to build their rudimentary dreams,

She says my weight will be greater.

So much for the spindles, pulleys and shafts

Who conspire to show

My maximum permitted loading

For Winter North Atlantic, Indian Summer

And Tropical Fresh Water.

For as I tell her over and over,

I never plan to leave this world again.

Gerard Fanning