The harbor is a smoky room tonight.
Chains knock
against rusted hulls.
A buoy rings once
out past the fog.
The tide slides down the scale
like a tired sax man
leaving the stage.
Rusty boats lean into the pilings
like bassists into the wood.
The wind sharpens a reed
against the jagged edge of the pier.
The water pulls back slowly
revealing black mud
and the smell of things forgotten.
Salt is the only witness.
It records every debt
in the grain of the docks.
It keeps the score.
Down in the gut of a trawler
an engine cools
with a patient metallic click.
A drummer packing his kit.
One radio whispers through static
inside a bait shack.
A dog shifts
in the bed of a truck.
Diesel breath.
Cold coffee.
Then the men come.
They do not talk.
They exhale
ghosts of diesel
and cheap burnt bean.
The water offers nothing.
It waits
like a stone faced bouncer
for the room to empty.
They climb the hill
one heavy beat at a time.
And when they reach the porch lights
they carry the rhythm with them
deep in the grit
of their boots.
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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