On the Ferry to Staten Island

I refuse to eat the hotdogs and knishes my mother buys for us. Her children she shepherds blindly to what she thinks is the safer green. For herself too. Shuttled from my room where my brother and I would sit, five in the morning, watching Swan's Crossing. A character lived on a boat. Her bed above water, rocks her into sleep, rocks her away from living. This boat takes us away from Him, who holds us in tough embraces and lullabies us with heavy, drunk whispers, reminds us in snarled parables we are small-nothings. His body drinks us. This harbor shakes in the rain. My mother extends the crook of her arm, before we hit the floor and flesh gives passage to the wound, ferries us to a shelter. Across the water, where she sings from the mustard's yellow, the promise of something better, crusted in the corner of her lips. This boat splits the harbor's skin.