Life Boat
The captives in a labor camp
with hopeful prospect of relief
will huddle close against the damp
in hopes of tempering their grief.
Yet people who are on a boat
that has no chance of being moored
before it casts its crew afloat
until they’re terminally shored,
make no attempt to bridge divides.
They scarcely dare attenuate
the terror of engulfing tides.
You’d think their need to navigate
against the coming of the storm
would make their common watch a norm.