The Jacket

He folded his jacket over the ship’s railing
with impeccable manners
and jumped into the warm sea

where an already bloated Shelley
was bobbing up and down
with every swell.

Keats’ bloody lungs
were attracting sharks,
Byron was surfing half a mile away.

The bridge from the mainland
to the barrier island
shone in the noonday sun

and as Crane sank beneath the waves
his jacket continued on its maiden voyage
scrutinized by the haberdasher William Logan.