Water wants
Who wouldn’t / wish we could / say, nobody dies
any more at sea / the way they did / in the past, lives
gone over fishing / treated as chattel / sickened in steerage
a letter if lucky / left for the water / numbers forgotten
leaving for want / of choice, forced / in other hands
we can reach / the moon, now / there and back
expect to breathe / in flight, crossing over / ocean, lands
where soils drain, dry / crops flood, fail / and argue
they’ll be fine / there, hunger / in wait, some harm
to keep offshore / leave out, within / the current’s pull
believing those / who drown cannot / swim, a shame
really, it is / still a problem / for somebody
knowing the sea / but that depends / who is nobody?
Seán Carlson is working on his first book, a family memoir of migration. His essays have been published or are forthcoming in Gulf Coast, the Irish Times, New England Review, Oxford Review of Books, and elsewhere. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Dappled Things, the Honest Ulsterman, the Irish Independent’s New Irish Writing, Trasna, and elsewhere. Seán and his family currently divide time between Rhode Island and County Kerry, Ireland.
