Dear Ever Given

—March 31, 2021 (two days after container ship freed from Suez Canal)

Driving home from the vaccine clinic   I remember how the full moon

lifted you   how high spring tides   joined tugboats and dredgers   

to wrench your bow from the clay   I feel the rush of water   the immense

push and pull   planets of sand scraped from your hull   so you could float 

again   Through farmsteads and strip malls   magnolias flushed

with color   I stretch my pale   bandaged arm out the window   Last day 

of March   wet pollen in every ditch     live bait signs on every corner   

broken trees   radio static in the space between towns   Behind me   

the lost year creaks   A hundred boats   linger in the canal   Heavy

with bed frames and bolts of silk   with coffee and livestock   enormous

vessels that have carried so much   for so long   whatever was asked   

whatever was needed   begin at last to stir and shift   to inch toward elsewhere

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Thanks to Beloit Poetry Journal, where this poem first appeared.