Ship Advancing in the Fog

I don’t know why
the sound of the horn was near,
and yet the ocean was not.
Fog obscures the visible
and purifies sound,
which is to say that when nothing is clear,
something anticipates it.

In any case, I stood outside the door
and listened to a cargo ship approach,
forge its way past sleeping houses
and muffled street-lights,
and I was strangely calm -

like in a dream where nothing
surprises you, not giant waves
advancing from a personal afar,
nor giant ships.
You are too small to run,
you stand transfixed by imminent disaster
waiting for it to be too late,
waiting to be delivered.