Great lady veiled in Bondi blue, with bright
copper torch flame reflecting sun, offers
salute to Queen Mary, shimmering light
forming vast, rippling halo around her
thousand-foot profile as she steams toward port,
nurturing mother of 10,000 troops,
returning them home from their last-resort
battles with Hitler, who slumped with head drooped
two months earlier, blowing his brains out
while biting cyanide in a Berlin
bunker, thus silencing his insane shouts
to sink the proud ship and mark Great Britain’s
defeat. How she flows with grace in white gown—
two-dozen lifeboats, three smokestacks her crown.
Roger Armbrust
November 27, 2007
