This sad derelict, dislodged from home
No stranger to the coldness of northern seas
Journeyed thousands of miles
Pushed by current and breeze
Like her sisters of old
Drifting to a destiny
Memories of her lovers still intact
The hand on the wheel
Hands pulling in nets, the smell of fish
Still in her belly
Fading shouts, smiles, anger, joking
Remain as her only cargo
Paralyzed, abandoned home
Heinous fire will consume her
But she welcomes freedom even as flames
Send her to a final watery grave
Where she will at last rest

Joseph E. Arechavala is a writer born and raised in New Jersey, a 2009 graduate of Rutgers University in Camden, father of two autistic sons and grandfather of five, and married to a sublimely beautiful and understanding woman for 35 years. He has had several poems and stories published online and in print in Pearl, Skyline, and other magazines, and published his first novel, Darkness Persists, in November 2012.