EVER GIVEN

by Kat Frabotta

“Ever Given” by DaveRiver at Deviant Art.

She trudged on, steered towards Rotterdam

The captain’s son called him. Something pestering

The wind. He felt itchy. His grip tightened

He jerked the wooden wheel

Left. Left. How fucking far can you go.

Too far, it seems.

A simple, swift U-Turn will fix things

She had other plans.

Had since leaving Taiwan, but now he spurred her on.

Now it wasn’t just a magical dream of a looming, vast, powerless vessel

He had actively propelled her, set her off, equipped her with the tools needed

To make her mark.

Ever Given,

For decades, Passing various goods to every spot she’s been told

Humans have not moved her.

People shoot Asians, step on the necks of black men,

Buy plastic to put on top of plastic

As the world burns.

Incredulous, she did what she could

With her mass and the blessing of propulsion

She burrowed deep.

She takes to Egypt, ignoring the cries of the Captain

Slowly entrenches herself into the sand of the canal.

And now she sits.

She sits, she blocks. She has no intention of budging.

Why should she?

We don’t budge.

And maybe we need to get stuck for a while right now, she thinks,

Shutting her eyes and making herself comfortable.

Kat Frabotta is a 29 year-old living in New York City. She is currently an advertising student and aspiring creative. In her freetime, she loves cuddling with her orange cat and talking to friends over a bowl of penne alla vodka.

FOUR YEARS BEFORE THE MAST

by Devon Balwit

A brokenness in need of fixing, we carom, 

blowing out sail after sail. At the helm 

gapes a hole the shape of a captain 

in love with his flail. We keep eyes 

to our holystones, thinner with each 

fretful pass, and scrub fore and aft. 

In sight of shore, we hoist a false flag, 

gilded with import. All know our master’s 

true master, his fathomless coffers 

deep in the hold. Our sad tongues 

misremember the taste of fresh water, 

the tartness of greens as we bleed 

from both ends. Weeping awakens the sleepers 

in the fo'c'sle. We ourselves 

may be its source. Without a hand 

to our throat, there’s no knowing.

Devon Balwit's most recent collection is titled A Brief Way to Identify a Body (Ursus Americanus Press). Her individual poems can be found in here as well as in Jet Fuel, The Worcester Review, The Cincinnati Review, Tampa Review, Apt (long-form issue), Tule Review, Grist, and Rattle among others.

THE SHIP OF FOOLS

by Darrell Petska

In Plato's Republic a ship of fools sailed—
can you see one now, just rounding the bend?
Already the ship lists heavily, its new captain
unskilled and lacking in sailorly knowledge.

Will the ship capsize? Chaos sweeps the deck,
its sailors bumbling their jobs as the ship veers
first toward one shore, then the other. From on high
descends a flurry of orders to right the vessel,
but their predicament grows worse by the moment.

Each sailor, believing to have the answer to their peril,
snitches and backstabs, crying foul of the rest.
Blood and curses fly, their captain at the helm inept,
or disinterested. Erratically onward they sail,
mutinous words like life jackets tossed about.

Someone barks an order—another sailor
no more skilled, rising up to wrest command,
but little does it matter: onto its side rolls the ship,
its unruly crew leaping overboard—
the captain fleeing in a lifeboat lugging gold.

Once tall and stately, the ship takes on water,
some fortunate ballast preventing its quick demise.
Will a wiser captain and crew come to the rescue?
Or will this ship, and its storied past, be remembered
for those who so miserably sailed it last?

Darrell Petska's writing appears in The Missing Slate, Whirlwind, Verse-Virtual, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, previously in TheNewVerse.News, and numerous other publications. Darrell cut short his career as a university editor to be the arbiter of his own words. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.