If he had boarded the frail proud lady,
My ancestor would have been a hysteric.
It would have been nothing new to him, though —
Boarding such a mighty vessel
With an unsinkable testimonial.
He had been on board Noah’s ark
For more than 40 days and 40 nights —
The first-ever lockdown in the first-ever
Flood pandemic.
He would have consulted an oracle before boarding
Lady Titanic,
To ascertain the position of the sinking stars,
And of course the position of the damned iceberg —
That monstrously frigid, vengeful, whitish monster,
Sitting like a proud humongous harlot on
The wavy vestibule of the docile North Atlantic.
He would have winced loudly from the cruel cold of
A bland and unforgiving April.
The Atlantic would have seemed so small to him,
Having floated on many oceans-in-one during
Uncle Noah’s wayward flood.
Things would have been different.
He would have sent off a dove and a raven
Before The Titanic set sail, to survey the grottos of the Atlantic.
The birds would have returned with news of the ocean,
Bringing tales wrapped in olive leaves, of any old
Scrimmage between the waves
And the iron foot of the jealous iceberg.
That would have been BREAKING NEWS,
Written BOLDLY in RED,
The colour of sea-danger, sea-terror . . . .
Things would have been different!
Perhaps The Titanic would have plied the reverse side of
The Atlantic . . . You know! . . . The less slippery side.
Less frenetic and less troublesome, and with no icebergs,
No matter how frigid the weather, in that flustered April,
Which my ancestor would have primarily called The Fourth Moon.
Yes! . . .
Sailing stealthily behind the Atlantic; the other side of it less travelled,
Cautious of the envy of the destroyer known euphemistically as Iceberg.
True . . . !
Like visiting the moon via the reverse side . . . ! Where the craters are
Perpetually on night shift . . . .
And things would have been different.
Lest I forget: a Greek ancestor would have brewed coffee with seawater.
And if greenish bubbles bobbed about, he would rather have hailed a barque.