Colorless, the sky, under which the mother prays, stunned. Gray, the father’s sunken cheeks. A capsized boat. Hard-hit dull aluminum hull. An old man hefts hawser and oakum along the wreck. Sisters keen along the keel. A photojournalist shakes and sweats nearby, and a grandmother counts and recounts children—four and not six, again, four and not six. A child takes her arm, then another wraps arms around her hunched, pallid body. There are four where there should be six. Water kisses the lip of the shore. There are four where there should be six. There are four where there should be six. There are four where there should be six.
Blue, this child’s lips.
Blue, the child’s fingertips.
The sea, the sky, now blue.
is a public school teacher and writer in southern New Jersey. He works for Murphy
Writing of Stockton University and for the Geraldine Dodge Foundation’s poetry
program. Poems appear in journals such as Crack the Spine, Serving House
Journal, and TLR: The Literary Review.
