POETRY

Finalist for the 2026 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize Honoring Jake Adam York

Show, Boat

By Leila Abeni Jackson     VOLUME 59 No. 3

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I start poems by asking, May I dock here?
And when the boathouse says [      ],
I do it anyway. But in this poem,
that does not happen. The boathouse asks
my name. My ship’s name. Didn’t you know
it’s [      ]. The red sea washes things away.
In this poem, I stand at the bow, trying
to negotiate. Tell us who sent you. Give us
what you bring and what you intend
to take. Show by whose appeal you perforated
our light. The red sea fills with blood
and asks no questions. Silence rolls its bodies
into wads and sticks them, brimming,
to the deck. In this poem,
my ship loves this land to death. She asks,
May I dock here?  When the executioner says [       ],
there is nothing left to do but stand and salute
the rising flag—that fanged thing ever whispering,
No, no, no.

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LEILA ABENI JACKSON is a proud DC native and a Pushcart-nominated Harvard graduate studying English and History of Science. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Rattle, Stone Circle Review, ONE ART, and elsewhere. She is the former poetry editor of The Harvard Advocate and winner of the 2024 Academy of American Poets Prize.


VOLUME 59 No. 3