POETRY

By Ben­jamin Faro

We, broth­ers, were but boom-swings

born of unnamed storms—eighty-eight

knot gales that tested Mother’s savvy.

Born at the peak of twenty-nine

-foot swells, we left her concussed

and rud­der­less, unsteering

in our unsaid suddenness,

pum­meled by the fetch

and wind shear. Shaken

by the atmos­pher­ic glut

of life for more

life, trough-bound

and plum­met­ing through

down­pour, heart-shook, no-

keel spin­ning in this North

Atlantic baby, growing not

-yet-hur­ri­cane, tipping stern

and bow and stern and bow

and vowing to tack forever

into an infi­nite, name­less wind.

Photo by Zolton Tasi.