Destinations, VI.

Even after I died, I could not close my eyes
as the tiny empires

pile up their bodies. Four quarters for a dollar, the playground leaves

make small tornadoes of possibility, and at the waterfront
the poor are music as they wash
their pants. Their song and the wind, their song and the wind.

At the waterfront, the slovenly boat comes in and on its side
scrawled in stenciled block letters
is the name of our understanding—seven black-faced laughing gulls call out
the ship’s name in staccato, and it’s true

the water is cast-iron deep and the groan it makes
sounds like what it is: children.

Even after I died I could not close my eyes, not even after I died.

The weather makes crude maps of our emotions, the currents of the sea,
but only for so long. Sometimes, wind moves
so quickly across the bay it’s as if it’s holding it down.

Copyright © 2009 Nick Courtright All rights reserved
from Beloit Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission