The porch holds smoke.
Not a room. A line.
Neighbors on the rail.
Shoulders set. No give.
Sailors kick the Atlantic
off their boots.
Salt hits wood. Stays there.
Chains strike hull.
Iron on iron.
A buoy rings once.
Fog takes it.
The dock hums.
Low and constant.
Tide pulls back.
Mud shows.
Black.
Wet.
Holding what it took.
Rot. Salt.
Old weight.
Salt keeps the record.
In the grain. In the throat.
Poets in the corner.
Hands marked.
Match flare.
Paper burns down.
A bottle passes.
No label left.
Whiskey sits heavy.
Does not ask questions.
Diesel in the lungs.
Smoke layered on smoke.
Coffee gone cold hours ago.
Still on the table.
Engines tick as they cool.
Metal pulling in on itself.
The radio leaks static.
A voice almost there.
No one turns it.
No one talks.
Boots on planks.
Weight carried forward.
Day shuts without asking.
Neighbors.
Sailors.
Smokers.
Up the incline.
Breath in.
Burn.
Breath out.
Less of it.
Grit set deep.
The air keeps moving.
Does not need a body.
It goes.
They follow.
I stay a moment longer.
Hand on the rail.
Feeling the wood hold the score.
Then I go too.
Same as them.
Nothing said.
Everything carried.
Joe Garvey is an American poet from Worcester, Massachusetts who lives in Narragansett, Rhode Island. A former linebacker at Hofstra University and later an actor in film and television, he writes about labor, salt air, endurance, and the quiet machinery of modern life. His work has appeared in Expat Press, Mad Swirl, Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature, and The Rye Whiskey Review. His writing can also be found at https://poetking.substack.com
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