Shipyards

Wrote this after seeing graffiti on the old shipyard bridge my grandfather would have crossed to work. It made me think of how this town has suffered a sad decline since those old days.

My grandfather
Was a shipyard worker,
But he died before
I was born.

Please don’t write him
Any more letters.
He won’t read them.

Like tinted water filling up
From the bottom of a glass tank,

Your black words spread
like dead ink
Across his memory.

They are like a sad graffiti
on an adjacent railroad bridge,
I pray he doesn’t see
Before it’s painted over.

I notice above and to the left
Is a dark green square,
Where your last sad
Cacography
was painted over.

I am reminded again that
Stagnation is a slow decay.