Tugboat by Robbie Chesick

January 20, 2022
Poem name: Tugboat Poet name: Robbie Chesick Poem begins: I sit on the silty beach with Yonatan watching a tugboat tool around the log boom so near to shore. We undress each other in the slanted September sun bulrushes bend towards the estuary sentinels burnishing copper-gold the little ship’s rubber hips push floating timber into sets our hands pet each other’s chests, eyes fixed on the floating dented metal cabin coiled rope on a deck so close we imagine its fray, smell the salt waft past the captain’s dark knit hat from above seagulls bark their greeting. We also yearn to soar, call out hello as well. End of Poem. Credits: Copyright © Robbie Chesick “Tugboat” is forthcoming in Brine, a collaborative chapbook from the HC5 collective. Robbie Chesick lives, writes and plays in Vancouver, BC, on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish Nations. She works as a clinical counsellor in private practice. Her poetry has been previously published in Vallum Magazine.