None of us saw it coming. A gale with hurricane-force wind gusts, sideways rain so hard it cuts skin like razors, enveloping in icy fire.

She’s a good a ship, but all vessels have limits. Her seams groan, her reefed square’s’ils, saturated in salt water, bend to the sea, as if longing to return.

The mizzen snaps with a sound like a mortar shot. Lines tangle. A young man screams as rebellious canvas yanks him to his death. 

She’s taking on water over the gunnels and from a sprung seam below. Ship’s carpenter works frantically. All hands shiver and bleed in slippery darkness.

A deckhand collapses and is washed overboard. 

The old man clutches the foremast and curses.

A yardarm shatters. A shard impales the second mate.

Four helmsmen wrestle the wheel.

Will she flounder? 

Unrelenting nor’easter derecho:

Despot.

Pandemic.

Sickness. 

Death.

War.

Poverty.

Trafficking.

Mutilation.

Abortion.

Capital punishment.

Mass incarceration.

Addiction.

Brutality.

Estrangement.

Injustice.

Racism.

Betrayal.

Divorce.

Bereavement. 

Lies. 

Fraud. 

Corruption. 

Hypocrisy.

Faustian bargains.

Greed.

Loss after loss after loss

Will it never stop?  Where, oh where, are the Tradewinds and Zephyrs? The God who calms the seas, and turns back Rahab?