April is National Poetry Month, and the Post is celebrating by featuring poems about Alameda penned by local writers. This week’s featured poet is our Managing Editor Kelsey Goeres. For our final Poetry Month segment, she shares a poem titled The Ferry Ride Home.
The Ferry Ride Home
On the ferry back to the island, the water twinkles turquoise.
A pig-tailed head licks the ice cream dripping
onto her plump pink fist.
A biker in the tightest pants you’ve ever seen squeezes
the last drop from his reusable water bottle
—the day’s odyssey nearly at a close.
A mom sighs as her little one bashes an action figure
against the side of the boat, yelping
like a bobcat.
Lovers hold hands. One leans on the other’s shoulder,
eyes heavy, curls blowing in his mouth. The strands stick
there, unbothered as flies in honey.
A mustached 30-something reads a book about meditation,
his plaid flannel flapping in the wind,
living presently in the moment.
And one man, droopy as a Basset Hound, just stares.
With his hands in his pockets he keeps his eyes on
the horizon, as if waiting for a bomb to mushroom, or maybe a miracle.
The waves slosh, as the boat turns slow,
creeping toward the dock. The sun is orange
and low. The seagulls laugh
like they do from above, looking down at the little people
as they form their matted line, to spill out
onto the dock and make their way back home.
Kelsey Goeres is the Managing Editor of the Alameda Post. Contact her via [email protected]. Her writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Kelsey-Goeres.
