Brian Bartlett - Ghosts of Pier 21 (an excerpt)

Night has parachuted you here, onto the seawall.
     You stumble,
regain your footing, your bare feet blue. You spread
     your sleep-numbed fingers
through diaphanous air. This was once a place of welcoming
     and farewell,
like any doorstep. Breaking the mist, then slipping away
     just as fast,
ships take possession of a moment again,
     lit by no light
other than the light of memory:

     Aquitania   Arosa Star   Athenia   Atlantic
     Baltrover   Bayano   Beaverbrae   Calgaric
     Canberra   Carinthia   Cristoforo   Columbo

Watching the fast-forward drift, you think, "Unreal –
     alphabetical!"
There's a minesweeper made over for refugees,
     moonlight pouring
into the hollow cheeks of the exhausted ones on deck;
     a once-white liner
now a troop carrier, humbled, turned reptile-green;
     a hospital ship
whose wounded are hidden, like flaws inside an egg.
     Up a gangplank
a doctor walks forever, his pale trenchcoat spotted.