
The Ever Given stuck in the Suez Canal, March 24, 2021. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2021.
Wedged like a mint in the oiled airway of the world,
the Ever Given waits for the moon to pry open
its throat for water. I’ve slid into the couch, a lost
lozenge. Can’t look up or back, dream-sousing
the great books in the library of Alexandria
that burned—ones I didn’t write. I’ve got nothing
on the forces of nature. No rising tide. No lift out
of this bucket-stupor. Egyptians cut the isthmus
deeper. Farmers filled and emptied a billion baskets,
then steam shovels, dredgers and a red sea swelled
for vast containers. I lived at the lip of a maw
that swallowed whole a temple’s roof. No gates.
No guards. Just a parking lot’s dry socket and
decayed white molar, garbage, and loose papers.