Today's poem is by Jessica Goodfellow

Stay
        "It is a joy to be hidden, and disaster not to be found." ~D. W. Winnicott

I have always loved the geometry of ships, their bowsprits and their brails,
their trestle trees and jib-booms. Walking along the harbor,
I admire the long lines of the mizzenmasts, the angled elegance of sails.

I have always believed in geometry as a domain for hiding secrets—
the clean lines distracting from what's below deck & what's under-
sea: the muck, the wrecks, the sea monsters in the endless freezing dark.

I believe in Winnicott's joy of being hidden, heightened by the disaster
of not being found—as a wind for days might not find a sail,
and what a relief that is, until it isn't. There is a part of the rigging

called the stays, straining in an unexpected wind. Stay, won't you?
Please, stay. Because starboard, stays are called, instead, shrouds—
the sound of forever being stayed, the final sound of not being

found.

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Copyright © 2023 Jessica Goodfellow All rights reserved
from The Cincinnati Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission