[Down by the dirtied docks]

(for Alberto Caeiro)

Down by the dirtied docks
the seagulls are struggling against the wind;
not the winds of chance or the wind
that cries a lover's name, just
the wind. This is a secular poem.

It's written on the wall:
No Fishing. The fishermen's wall
is deserted; the wind has blown
all the fishermen away, nothing but
shallows in the shallows.

What's more than this is that this
western wind shambles dead skin
and waste about the barren streets,
innocent of us.