bonita and bill butler

i grew up in the scantling yards of wheeling west virginia

a wheelhouse cub looking for an open door

in the packet ways a sweeney wed the keel of my bonita

just two months from her timbers til she moored

i paid the fare in billet on her maiden voyage to vicksburg

and talked my way to hand the tiller on the course

in her planks i carved a notch and sealed the vow be my bonita"