Dishonest Corset
1.
I set out to sea 1853? I was chin-deep in rum and tired of drifting. Well, that schooner sank! And when she hit bottom, I swam from the crow's nest and trudged back to Boston. Next time around it was nigh 1860, but the voyage was jinxed, we took tacks that were risky. A storm sent us down, and I bubbled and frowned. It was a long ways away, a long hike back to town.
2.
In 1903 word first got to me that the name Jonas Mauken was rather unlucky. Despite this I sailed (as ?Salty? J. Mackie) and sank not but two miles in sight glass of Quincy. Four years elapsed and I went out with Dow on that steel, seven-master, and I spat on the bow. We ran ?fore a gale that tore out the rigging, and she finally floundered near the Islands of Scilly.
? A whaler from Portsmouth, a trawler from Gloucester? they all met their fate and I slowly slogged homeward?
3.
For decades and decades I been sinking ships, but never a curse hath come from my lips. I'm a good-natured man, and an experienced hand, but disaster comes calling when I set out from land. I spent years on the sea, and many years under, tramping sea floor once my ship's torn asunder. But I'll keep trying, yea, though I sink every one, until somehow I'm stopped, by God or by gun.
