In our port window:
old fishermen

sloped toward
hooks, years

baiting & coiling
line knotted

in their palms;
Krakatoa moon

faces tinged
blue by ash;

my love
unwinding

the rope; our boat
released into water

white with clouds;
his eyes glacial,

receding; myself
as a woman

lying bare
breasted & mute;

another wooden
figurehead

trying to shame
an unknown sea.

 

—

Rachel Morgenstern-Clarren is a poet and translator based out of Montreal. Her work has been honored with an Academy of American Poets Prize, a Hopwood Award, and a Fulbright Fellowship to Brazil, recently appearing/forthcoming in Ploughshares, Ninth Letter, and MANOA. She holds an MFA in poetry and literary translation from Columbia University, and is the Consulate Editor for Joyland Magazine.