Of the moment

A story about a timely matter.

14 April 2023

Steve Gerson —

Teeming Shores: a Triptych

1. What it must
What it must have felt like to land on our shores a dark sea behind them dark clouds of
oppression dissipating like a swarm of bees the hissing becoming silent and now just open skies
a land waiting to be tilled my grandparents arriving with an alien language of consonants and
only hope filling their baggage now reoccurring daily at our borders new Americans wanting to
quench their thirst and breathe air without bombs with the unlimited opportunities of limitless
horizons what if must feel like

2. A hint of
She left the boat from Haiti sailing on a 20-foot skiff to Jamaica sea-washed salt-sodden with a
Coke bottle of fresh water and cooked cornmeal wrapped in plantain leaves hunger as constant
as fear she and 22 others barefoot ragged Levis she and her infant daughter tied to her bosom
as tightly as a dream and landed in Port Maria darkness becoming dawn wading through the
Caribbean onto wet sand her toes digging into a hint of freedom soon

3. Camino Real
Roberto y Isa walked weary through saguaro thorns past coyote screams and dry gulch bones
broken dreams of hope scorched in heated air casting mirages on the sand of freedom sought like
water in empty canteens toward the Camino Real a royal road over a wall of anger a shout of
wrath shredding like concertina wire into Eagle Pass and there on new land saw a future that
opened like air intake on breath-wary lungs

Steve Gerson writes poetry and flash about life's dissonance. He has published in CafeLit, Panoplyzine, Crack the Spine, Vermilion, In Parentheses, and more, plus his chapbooks Once Planed Straight; Viral; and the soon to be published The 13th Floor: Step into Anxiety from Spartan Press.

Photo by Jake Weary