Captain James Raven Considers Kathleen Munro

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I can read her mind like a children’s book:
considering quitting our pirate trade
with this reluctant recruit we waylaid
when we overwhelmed his ship, just their cook

escaping, and me ordering the jade
to worm her way into this new man’s heart,
and find out if he intends to depart
and have us chained in the Governor’s stockade,

and from there to the gallows and a swing
into black eternity. For his soul
doesn’t rejoice when we blast broadside holes
into ships we take from a distant king.

I fear she tires of our riotous life:
tempted to be a small, harmless man’s wife.

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Robert Cooperman’s latest collection is Go Play Outside (Apprentice House). Forthcoming from Kelsay Books is A Nightmare on Horseback.

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