On the Sayville Ferry

On the weekend trek to the island, I relax 
only atop the ferry, rocking in the slip, 
tasting salt from the ocean beyond the bay 
and the island membrane—a relapse 
to the nook and comfort of your womb?   

How harsh a birth must be: the violence 
of the shove and push; the loss of the saline 
blanket; passages clearing—ears, nose, 
throat, lungs—the sudden intake of air; 
the umbilical pump shutting down 
and then the final snip. Did we feel it?  

I’m told you were too anxious to nurse 
or even hold me. They laced you in a clutch 
of cables and electrodes, the bit in the mouth, 
and the thick black straps. What does an infant 
know other than he’s abandoned? Will I always 
listen for footsteps sneaking out the back?  

Today is my sixty-third birthday, divisible 
by three—the mother, the son and the holy 
bond of our sundered biology. The ferry slips 
out of the harbor, and I return to the sea.

DON HOGLE

Don Hogle’s poetry has appeared recently in Apalachee Review, Atlanta Review, Carolina Quarterly, Chautauqua, Pilgrimage, Stone Canoe, South Florida Poetry Journal, and The A3 Review and Shooter in the UK. Among other awards, he won first prize in the 2016 Hayden’s Ferry Review poetry contest. He lives in Manhattan. Website: donhoglepoet.com.