1.

a sip of coffee over the engine room log sheet

a (more or less) quiet engine room
fans running, a Fool’s Autumnal breeze
the rhythm of river water lapping up
against the wharf: a moment between tasks

2.

street cleaning for the tourist trade

the first wave arrives wrapped
in the skin of someone else’s kindness
a sort of Ed Gein strategy

but left untreated, like any leather,
the swaddling rots