(John Torrington 1825 – 1846)
If I were young
and a man and
square shouldered
enough I’d choose
a shirt like his –
the ice in its fine
dark stripe on white
warmed as it was
when he first wore it
before the fever
burned through him
and shrank him away
and his shipmates
dressed him in it
for burial – left him
in the perfect cold
intact and like himself
then strayed in twos and
threes or however it was
to where they lay down
obscurely in their clothing.