Semantics he pondered while haulin’
On hawsers: “Now should I be scrawlin’
Where it asks your sex, ‘boy’?
That’s a lexical ploy.
But what the heck, ports are a-callin’.”

They started out across the ocean,
The boat had a strange, lulling motion.
One day his reverie
Was dashed; he went to see
What might be causing the commotion.

The mate showed the assembled the mark
Made by razor-sharp teeth in the bark.
“The pattern leaves no doubt,”
He continued to shout,
“This dark bark mark was carved by a shark!”

From the deep protruded a dorsal,
And it suggested was their course null
And void because the fish
Viewed the crew as a dish
And wanted to eat every morsel.

The dentin had dinged the damned dinghy;
The saltwater would be damn stingy
He took consolation
In no immolation:
He had already lost his thingy.

Into the craft the saltwater seeped
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” the mate peeped.
But it was now too late—
All resigned to their fate:
To be ate or with Davey Jones sleep.

Into the drink all the crew were tossed,
And the mate, deckless, feckless, still bossed.
But orders were in vain
As they bobbed on the main.
In due course all but one would be lost.

As he bobbed, he watched the tail fin swerve;
The attack wasn’t lacking in verve.
While the crew was shark-chewed,
He thought, “Now I am screwed.
I’ll be dinner, ‘cause they’re just hors d’oeuvre!”

Into the drink he was fear-pissing;
Just then he felt the piscine kissing
As the fish brushed between
His legs, and he did keen:
“At this point I’m glad that it’s missing!”

His chums had just served as human chum;
Though he’d been saved, he was gloom ’n’ glum.
But he was slightly cheered
When toward him slowly veered
The mate’s accursèd conga drum.

He glommed on, hung on, started to float
It was sure more buoyant than the boat
Which right at the moment
Had started to foment
Bubbles as it sank. . .left, not a mote.

The conga served as some flotation,
But he made a mental notation:
To grab it by the sides
While on the waves he rides
And kicks to avoid drum rotation.

After what seemed like a week of days,
He was weak, but he looked up to gaze
At something that arose
From the sea; then he froze
As peepers penetrated the haze.

The view had him visibly shaken;
He knew that he wasn’t mistaken:
He’d spied a spit of land
So paddled with each hand
And haste to the place started makin’.