Paintings in the Peabody Essex Museum

I.

The Margaret, 1800:

I remember when I was formed,
how the hewn logs fit
as they were spliced
and bolted,

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

He was my father, and Salem
where my ribs rubbed
on 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 womb
that contained me.

Guy ropes like rough, oily membranes
held me to the land
though with every breeze
I strained for the sea.

Like all embryos I was parasitic
and fed from everything around me:

white oak from Danvers
became my ship-knees,

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

and the locust
for my trunnels
came from Cape Ann.

The Nantucket Quaker who paid
said 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 sparks
that singed their beards.

Caulkers and joiners sealed me.

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

Paneling graced my cabins.

Painters gave me a lemon-yellow waist
to 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 child
floating in her mother’s womb
shows beauty’s promise
in the swirl of a face,

and the precise, clean lines
of forming fingers.

II.

The Malay, 1818:

Tall, over six foot, she was a goddess
and not of this earth
though, 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 school
and played all day on the docks
stopped their games
and ran yelling after her.

Barkeeps, sailors, and dock girls stared.

Bold, she was poised to fly forward
and 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 red
her painted lips.

Her face, bone-white,
was serene,
almost accepting
of the storms
I would push her into.

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

My figurehead. My name. My soul.

III.

The Friendship, 1797:

At last I was complete
and trembled
as the blocks
were knocked from beneath me.

Still a thing of the land,
and of the rough
but kind hands
of men,

I took a long time
to slip my moorings.

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

Finally, the Shipwright’s daughter
broke 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 silly
vain thing,
all thin masts
and furled sails.

Docked nearby, two old East Indiamen
their decks flamboyant
with flags and bunting,

their waists below
the waterline
vast
and barnacled
caught my wave—

and on it
rose and fell.