Scott Simpson · Poetry

Escape Plans

Restoration Blues · source pages 29

The original line breaks, stanza spacing, and placement are preserved. Long lines scroll horizontally.

Source page 29

Escape Plans

They wanted off the ship—

anything to leave the decks, now slick with blood,

the stench of failure, the echo of arguments.

Life-rafts drifted loose,

each team with its own provisions,

its own map, its own captain.

The Craftsman watched,

hands raw from splinters,

eyes tired from watching horizons.

He did not stop them.

Escape, after all, is a kind of choice,

though not the one He’d hoped for.

They misunderstood the journey—

thought the goal was land,

the prize safe harbor.

Never imagined the sea itself,

wild and untamed,

was part of the calling.

Their maps led nowhere,

circles on blank water,

the rafts splitting,

drifting alone beneath stars

they could not read.