gorgeous ships they launch

2.
Like old women, burying their
husbands, burying their sons, lasting
it out for years without their breasts
or wombs, with ancient eyes,
arthritic hands, and memories like
gorgeous ships they launch
despairingly to bring back all
their dead, and which, as if constructed
by some clumsy sonneteer, betray them
instantly and sink without a trace.

John Mathhias, "Survivors"