It’s the Boat That Haunts You
- It’s the Boat That Haunts You
And so it is, the boat has come to own you, has learned to speak a language you cannot help
but agree with, its voice the dark lapping of water against the hull, its song the wind
in the stays while you sleep, dreaming of a bowsprit to hold you against the waves, and the boat
curls golden bracelets of cedar around your wrists as you plane each
plank, its touch the dream of a body becoming whole—to make the shape, to be shaped—and the boat
says please, says the honed edgeagainst clear grain is my small prayer to your devotion.
May you forget your life, may youalways be close. [End Page 60]
Matthew Nienow’s latest chapbook is The End of the Folded Map (Codhill Press, 2011). Recent poems have appeared in Agni Online, Blackbird, and New England Review, and are forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Crazyhorse, and Poetry Northwest. He received an NEA Literature Fellowship in 2011 and has been awarded scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, among other grants and fellowships. He lives with his family in Port Townsend, Washington, where he works as a boatbuilder.
