In between their greasy luck
and after the crew has sealed
spermaceti in barrels below,
the deck scrubbed down,
harpoons and oars bent
and broken from the hunt,
now mended. Still,
scraps of whale are scattered about.
Bits of bone with a graceful arch.
A frightful tooth, enormous even
in the hand that brought the beast down.

The scrimshander keeps this in his pocket
or in his bunk, and sometimes
runs his thumb over the enamel's rough ridges.
All the sails are resewn now
and each day slips into the next
while the scrimshander files the surface flat,
waiting for the call from masthead.

The sky spreads empty over empty sea
shades upon shades of blue, deep
and pale and delicate blue,
polished like all variations
of the tinged tooth's one color, rubbed smooth.

The sail needle pricks each point
to its own depth, while each wave
rises up differently from the last.
Foam rolls off the crest of one
then bubbles under. Another wave
is blown back by the wind.
Each passes, then runs together
into the same sea, as the scrimshander
scrapes each point along the lines
of one image and then darkens the grooves
with soot; the voyage, cutting its mark
across a glassy surface, carving into the blue.