I’ll Be a Sailor

by Walter Weinschenk

Sailors flee from land
To leave their pain behind;
They cannot bear the loss of love
That pulsed through arms
That reached for them at night,
But grew exhausted
In the course of time.

Sailors are deluded:
The ocean offers no asylum;
The sea is not a refuge
And loss cannot be thrown away
Or left upon the wharf;
A sailor cannot fly from grief
Regardless of the speed or strength
Of some great ship
That wrests him from the land;
Engines fail, sails tear
And that same ship returns, in time,
To the same dock from which it sailed.

I realize these things
But, tomorrow, I will forget
And will come to think,
As sailors do,
That I have no choice
But to find a boat
To take me past the thin grey line:
A boundary that, today,
I understand quite well
Is one that can’t be crossed.

Bleu Optics

by Saima Afreen

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Walter Weinschenk is an attorney, writer, and musician. Walter’s writing has appeared in a number of literary publications including The Carolina Quarterly, Lunch Ticket, The Normal School, and others. He is the author of The Death of Weinberg: Poems and Stories (Kelsay Books, 2023). More of Walter’s work can be found at walterweinschenk.com.

Saima Afreen is a poet, essayist, journalist, and abstract expressionist. She’s pursuing a PhD in English studies with concentration in creative writing from Illinois State University, USA. Her works have been widely published in prestigious literary journals across West Europe, North America, South Asia, Central Africa, and Australia.