The Duke of Nowhere

The Duke of Nowhere

The Duke of Nowhere

I was the son of the Duke of Nowhere.
Nowhere was home.  The first sound I remember

was engines sawing steam, the butt
and squeal of wagons full of clunk

shunted cruelly. Lifted to the window sill
I had my first sight of our exile

as I thought: Here, me,
watching . . . There, trains going away . . .

*

He was living incognito
but his secret was safe with me.

I was the solitary heir to everything
he never once mentioned. I guessed

from his brooding, his whole silent days,
it must be vast. The lost estates

grew vaster in the weeks,
then months, he went away and stayed.

*

Beyond the roofs, beyond the dockyard wall
were cranes, then the edge of the world.

On a clear day I could watch grey frigates
climb it and slip over. I woke one night

to singing in the streets that suddenly
grew small as all the hooters of the fleet

brawled up together, blurting
Home . . . as if any such place

existed, over the horizon, anywhere.