I have seen boats rot in harbors
the remains of deep sea giants
long since gutted
washed up with regret
kelp rooting in their spines

Tug boats and fishing trawlers
lie abandoned bow-down in mid-channel
rusted cockpits crystallized with salt air
their sterns point up like bitches in heat
just waiting for the next high tide

My sweetheart’s boat lost a fuel tank
the month before he lost his life
but his vessel didn’t end like the others
In the cabin, when I sold it, I felt my man
was in the teak and brass

I recall that after days of open ocean
we anchored off a New Zealand shore–
me, glad for seals and albatrosses
but he, looking out to sea, whispered
there I am without limit

Jan Seagrave has been a writer for Caltech and UC San Diego, a storyteller, and a librarian. Her work appears or is forthcoming in San Pedro River Review; Gyroscope Review; Eunoia Review; Reverberations II, ed. Pendergast; Marin Poetry Center Anthology 2016, 2017, 2021; Redwood Writers Poetry Anthology 2018-2021; Amore: Love Poems, ed. Tucker, 2016.