The Figure of Speech

It was a bit of a spaceship,
Something submarine about it,

Maybe a quarantined fortress,
From outside, a floating castle,

One of those things made to control
Dangerous contrasts in pressure,

Anyone in its protection
Isolated against the world.

It was, in fact, a rock cabin,
Assembled of lava cobbles,

Not sealed up or controlled at all,
Just a small stone house in the woods

That looked, at night, with its lamplight,
Like spaceship, castle, submarine.

There was one isolated soul,
Ensconced and along for the ride,

Who lurked around that lamplight, soul
Of little productive value,

The kind you’d find in a small flat
Sleeping on a futon in town

Or hanging out in a sports bar
In a mall in suburban sprawl,

But here almost mysterious,
One shadowy inhabitant

Of one solitary cottage
In scruffy woods regrown from stumps.

They were traveling through the night,
Stone cabin, lone soul, and lamplight,

Like explorers on the sea floor,
A bare freighter between dead stars,

A Venetian Lazaretto
High-walled and waiting near to port,

An entire citadel, unmoored,
And all but empty, waves’ black ghosts.