Fourteen days adrift at sea.

Morale had ebbed as far.

Sun dried spittle on the lips

Which crimped like roads to Shangri-La.

 

Men sucked orange (flesh and pips)

And ground the rinds down for their tea:

“A treat,” they’d whisper, close to tears;

The waves below lapped hungrily.

 

More days passed, in their place fears

Took sailors in their grips;

Those fears hauled three men overboard

To glug a fate beyond their ship’s.

 

At length one sailor saw his sword

Not as a sword but as some shears

With which to trim a better meal than

Dregs and rinds and empty beers.

 

Man looked to man much less like man,

Much more a scrumptious hoard:

Offal, marrow, suckled meats —

Enough for fillets flat and broad.