Waylon used to
walk the docks
with his father,
letting loose
and wet shoestrings
slap and dance.
Waylon learned patience from his father
while fishing in the bayou.
Sometimes, he would wait and listen to the boats bump against waterlogged wood.
It was his mother that made sure food was available-
Working two jobs,
biting fingernails to bleeding skin.
Still, she had time to prepare sandwiches in brown paper bags-
rations for her men on the docks.
Every fall,
the tide rises
and clouds gray, promising
full crab traps and a larger paycheck.
When the news reached
the family, they boarded
windows and wrapped
prized possessions like
packaged lollipops.
They didn’t stop. They didn’t leave. They were dying to live.
Father took his boat out-
collecting crustaceans like a miner
chiseling coal caverns, when he noticed
strange wave-patterns coasting in-
The bowline knot hinged
the boat to dock like eyeglasses repaired with masking tape.
Rain fell in form of glass beads,
stripping paint off automobiles.
Waylon’s father thought he would walk home.
All he heard was clapping
raindrops and wind
manipulating road signs
as the last bus was evacuated
and the levy
crumbled.
At home, Waylon awoke to his mother’s touch.
Gripping him in a sloshing
panic of damp brown paper bags,
she whisked him up into
the musk of the attic.
Waylon could not sleep, his mother sobbed
They did not stop. They did not leave. They died to live.
Waylon peeled open damp brown paper bags,
knowing he could not be a picky eater;
he heard the sounds of bodies bump against waterlogged wood.
He was not scared.
He closed his eyes and pretended he was at the docks,
waiting for his
father’s boat
to coast
home.
The world outside is drowning,
Waylon stays afloat by letting shoestrings play-
the same way that rape victims
use imagination
to create dissonance.
Waylon will never be scared.
He learned patience from his father
while fishing in the bayou.
From: Chainsawsmoking: Poems Wrapped in Cellophane
Summary
“Life Boat” by Aaron Hopkins-Johnson is a poem centered on family, mortality and loss, social justice. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
Analysis
Voice
The speaker works through observation and associative imagery, allowing scene and image to carry the argument.
Style and form
The poem is line-driven, compressed. The poem moves by accumulation: images, references, and tonal turns build on one another, so meaning emerges from their relationships as much as from narrative sequence.
Themes and imagery
Its strongest thematic currents include family, mortality and loss, social justice, aging. Concrete images give those abstractions physical weight, while changes in diction and pace keep the poem from settling into a single emotional register.
Reading the poem
A productive way to read “Life Boat” is to watch how its images change function as the poem progresses. Details that initially establish scene or memory become emotional evidence. The result is a poem whose argument is carried through association, rhythm, and image as much as through explicit statement.
Explore this poem
Source & rights
Source: Chainsawsmoking: Poems Wrapped in Cellophane (Lawn Gnome Publishing, 2016)
Rights: © 2016 Lawn Gnome Publishing. All rights reserved.