Paintings in the Peabody Essex Museum

I.

The Margaret, 1800:

I remember when I was formed,how the hewn logs fitas they were splicedand bolted,

and how the master carpenter smiledwhen he saw that part of me assembled.

He was my father, and Salemwhere my ribs rubbedon the shore’s gray gravel,was my mother.

A week later, they gave me a keel,and upon that they placed a keelson.

At my stern a post was carved.

Ribs of oak, like stout laughter,sprang up and out.

As I grew so did the giant wombthat contained me.

Guy ropes like rough, oily membranesheld me to the landthough with every breezeI strained for the sea.

Like all embryos I was parasiticand fed from everything around me:

white oak from Danversbecame my ship-knees,

Rockport maple my decks,yellow pine from Mainemy inner skin,

and the locustfor my trunnelscame from Cape Ann.

The Nantucket Quaker who paidsaid I sucked the forest into me.

After two new moons, I had decks,bulwarks and cabins.The shipwrights’ work was done.

Ironworkers followed.They forged my chains and pulleys,and cursed the sparksthat singed their beards.

Caulkers and joiners sealed me.

Carvers gave me a gingerbread railingand bright quick-work on my bows.

Paneling graced my cabins.

Painters gave me a lemon-yellow waistto set off my blue-black topsides.

In the Captain’s quarters, pale blue,like secrets, whispered.Before I was launched I was pretty,had definite perfections—as a human childfloating in her mother’s wombshows beauty’s promisein the swirl of a face,

and the precise, clean linesof forming fingers.

II.

The Malay, 1818:

Tall, over six foot, she was a goddessand not of this earththough, like me, formed from wood.

She rode to me chained on an ox-cart.

Humble, though it was,she sat it like a throne.

The ragged children who never went to schooland played all day on the docksstopped their gamesand ran yelling after her.

Barkeeps, sailors, and dock girls stared.

Bold, she was poised to fly forwardand never look back.Her gold-trimmed gown,cinched at the waist,billowed behind her.

Her figure was full,and her crossed arms strong.Fancy were her curls,and redher painted lips.

Her face, bone-white,was serene,almost acceptingof the stormsI would push her into.

Below her bare feet, a wreath lay.Beneath that an open scrollwith the name, “Malay”.

My figurehead. My name. My soul.

III.

The Friendship, 1797:

At last I was completeand trembledas the blockswere knocked from beneath me.

Still a thing of the land,and of the roughbut kind handsof men,

I took a long timeto slip my moorings.

It was winter.Many in the crowd,cold and bored,left.

Finally, the Shipwright’s daughterbroke a bottle on my prow,

Be thee a prosperous ship.In the name of God,I christen thee Friendship.

With a great splash,I hit the water.

Oh how I bobbed, a sillyvain thing,all thin mastsand furled sails.

Docked nearby, two old East Indiamentheir decks flamboyantwith flags and bunting,

their waists belowthe waterlinevastand barnacledcaught my wave—

and on itrose and fell.