The Padre's peckish so his foot descends
from bunk to scuffle slippers on the deck.
Steel cold takes hold and dreams of tamarinds
abandon currying favour near his neck
that wrapped in cloth — the cloth! — provides a check
to the footless cold that scampers through his head.
Their toeholds lost, his dreams escape his bed
and go to join angels, Asia, trees ...
then Padre wakes, and waking, thinks of bread
and then, of course, of wine, and slabs of cheese.
"What a friend we have in cheeses," he
intones past tonsils roughened by Bordeaux.
Ten minutes later, gazing at the sea,
he adds, "and oranges, prior for Cointreau.
which, as someone — was it Diderot? —
some Encyclopedist of his ilk
but not, I think, abseiling to take silk,
suggested — no, Deníis put forth an egg
as, scrambling each, no doubt with Leibfraumilch,
theory man invents, God pulls his leg."