Standing on
the western edge,
walled with rock and green,
the ocean silver patched,
bleeds into
a rain-swelled sky.
Across a blurred sea
there’s Boston.
Ancestors, traveled there
sailing on hope,
knobbed bones,
washboard ribs
steerage passengers
stacked like cordwood,
coffin berths.
Are we not all made of
sinew? Tissue?
Down-covered swells
of sweet tasting flesh?
And yet,
the stench of rotting fields.
An ocean filled with fish,
“our own” forbidden
from casting a net.
Ships packed with export,
but a shilling
for a starving man
to build a needless wall.
Standing in this place,
I think about bellies.
Cold caves of want.
Families. Boys, girls,
babes gone before speech,
a father
faced with non-choice,
eviction or
“assisted” immigration.
And so, my ancestors,
maybe yours,
crawled onto a boat,
departed desperation,
staggered to a foreign place,
made of themselves,
carried on.
Lifetimes later,
I look out from
this western edge,
stomach full,
and wordless.
and wordless.
