There Are Boats — Blackbird Archive

← v18n1, Spring 2019

There are boats

and people sail them

out to sea

out past the sight of land

across an ocean

full of sharks.

There are boats

and people on them

far out at sea

deep in the pockets

of a gathering storm.

There are boats

that sink

and boats that float

boats made of

metal and wood

and boats made

of inflatable plastic

full of children

full of mothers

floating with nothing

but what they could carry

carrying nothing

but the air beneath them.

immigration displacement water family

Holly Karapetkova

Holly Karapetkova is the author of two collections of poetry, Towline (Cloudbank Books, 2016), winner of the Vern Rutsala Poetry Prize, and Words We Might One Day Say (Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 2010). Her poetry, prose, and translations have appeared in Prairie Schooner , RHINO , The Nashville Review , and The Southern Review , among others. She is an associate professor in the department of Literature and Languages at Marymount University.