The Rusting Hull

Iron skeletons stretch toward a gray sky, bare ribs of vessels that never tasted the sea. The salt wind sings through the hollow frames, a dirge for voyages unmade.

Barnacles cling to concrete pilings, stubborn teeth in the river's receding jaw. Vines crawl up the gantry cranes, green veins pulsing over oxidized steel.

We built monuments to our own departure, left them here to anchor the tide. Now the marsh grass rises through the slipway, and the earth takes back its heavy iron bone.