A Wrong Turn of Your Wheel

Is all it takes, and our death
Boat’s off course. Not yours, of course.

Yours is sure, is your course. Ours
Has no oars; ours has no sails,

No steam, no gas, and no helm.
Ours is such that we can’t sink,

As you will sink, and can’t steer,
As you must steer us. We drift,

And you are our wheel, our star
On the waves that bear us on.

If you sleep, then we go wrong.
Once you dive down, we’ll go on,

But past your death, who knows where
Ours goes. We weren’t lived in you,

Though you thought us; we weren’t quite
Breath, though you breathed us. Our boat

Is a ghost, or is your ghost,
And could be ghost for more hosts,

But once we’ve lost course, who knows?
And if no one knows, no one hosts,

What can we be but those waves
We meant to float? All ghosts go.