Michael Lest's chapbook is primarily concerned with sailing the open sea, which is remarkable considering that Michael never in his life left Bergen County, New Jersey. Nonetheless, sailing was a popular literary motif of the time, and the Black Yak editorial staff was finally beginning to face the notion that poetry about milk was simply not catching on.
One could say that nautical terms, devoid of context and meaning, gain a stunning metaphorical power, and when some of the terms are not nautical at all, then the sea is transformed utterly, making Mr. Lest the most metaphysical poet since George Herbert. One could say that.