My Grandfather Never Owned a Boat, He Never Needed One
the oceans receded from this desert many thousands of years before
we ever got here. But our thirst has persisted, dry as ammonites
in the acequia behind my grandparents’ house, and I figured it must be
a fake, but I still have that rock and it only makes less sense the older I am,
that I hold in my hand and dampen with my sweat this old dead thing,
and worry what new terrors will rise with the seas, drowning succulents
and sidewinders, rising to meet the jagged edge of mesa it used to visit
when high and low tide were much higher. When I was a child we were
landlocked.
When the ocean redraws its borders and all the skeletons are exhumed
from the banks of the river to rise back onto this land, will we mark
our new maps with new monsters? Will my grandson write a poem
about my boat?
Originally published in Hooligan Mag
Audio: Victoriano Cárdenas reads ““My Grandfather Never Owned a Boat, He Never Needed One”
Victoriano Cárdenas is a poet and writer from northern New Mexico. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico, and his debut book of poetry, Portraits as Animal, was published in 2023 by Bloomsday Literary Press. Recently, his novella "Casa de Sueños," was selected as the winner of the inaugural Stephen Graham Jones Horror Novella Competition, and is forthcoming from Subito Press.