I stood on a longboat.
A pretend viking sporting a mohawk.
The oars dipped into Lake Erie.
Strong backs at work.
Meteorologists predicted the fog to lift.
It did not lift.
To a degree we were irrelevant.
Our identities remained inconsistent.
We shifted through time. Past to present.
Present to past.
We made up new names
for our godly pantheon.
We made up betrayals
to focus our energies.
The foghorn moved
from front to side to back.
I have no memory
of how I earned the name Thor.
I think my shipmates
learned I was born on Thursday.
But it could be that I
cloaked the ship in fog.
copyright © 2021 Kenneth P. Gurney
Umflop 