I’m Bored

Life for them, they think, is as dull as a ship drifting in the doldrums,
and they say so, some young people, over and over again,
this teenage crew, younger than the next second, with all their lives ahead,
they make clear they spot merely to their left some unreachable rainbow,
the colored mist falling too far away for them to attempt to taste,
so better just to ignore it than seek it out, the gold, and to the right
perhaps, they feel, it’s a trap set for some misleading compass point,
one that would be unlucky to follow because it veers, they speculate a bit.
If only they were motivated to move in any direction – which they’re not.
Even if a breeze were to freshen from the east or west or anywhere,
the kind that ripples flower field waves or tall grass tides the mind,
picks up their ship, the sets their sails pushing their pulses forward,
they will reach out only so far as to touch what their hands drop into,
their fingertips idly connecting just with the water that lies
still as glass by their sides, the flash of a fleet dream streaking them by,
come and gone for them in a restless like sleep under a sun they think
will burn them before they even step outdoors or overboard into their lives.