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perhappened mag
issue 13: SALTWATER

ship in the night

ANGEL LEYBA
CW: alcoholism
When I was a little girl I thought my    dad was a sailor
always      gone      because he was chasing           the horizon

I thought him to be a captain
            shaking salt water out of his long hair
                        laughing into the sky with seagulls
bobbing along in a ship
            surrounded by mates who
                        held sunshine in their lungs too
They gave each other silly nicknames
            because that’s what sailors did of course
                        and all of them were fathers
to children like me
            waiting impatiently at the front door
                        with wonder in their eyes
but my                  dad didn’t think much of myths
as it turns out the docks were a place for men

with no melody in their hearts nor heart
in their words no word they will keep men

who were born from generations of barnacles
clinging to a pier of the only place they’ve ever known men

who have oil in their veins and roam the earth
with open wounds staining everything they leave behind men

who walk on the ceilings of their homes
shadowing each of their wives’ steps below them
            men
                        who
                                    drink  
                                                men
                                    who
                        drink
            men
                        who
                                    drink
                                                men
                                    who
                        drink
            men                

who     kiss their children’s foreheads while they are sound asleep
            but leave a draft in the room that will drown them for years when

I was a little girl            I thought my           dad was a sailor    
I was too young to see            ​he was a ship in the night and

I was no lighthouse

my mom was no lighthouse

my siblings a family a home

were no lighthouse

Angel Leyba is a queer, Latina writer and creative from South Bay San Diego currently located in the Bay Area. They are the Managing Editor at Berkeley Poetry Review and a Reader at Frontier Poetry. Her words have appeared in City Works Literary Journal and Soft Quarterly. Find them on Twitter @xspacebar.
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header photo: trevor mckinnon (unsplash)

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