“Our clean harbor is causing devastation
to the infrastructure of the waterfront”
– New York Parks Commissioner
There must be more than irony
devouring New York’s piers. Devout drillers
revived on unpolluted tides, hollowing
wooden pilings, baptizing promenaders
in gulled surprise
We got undawater bugs, the mayor moans.
It’s gonna take millions – union divers, steel, fiberglass,
* poem, in its entirety, is available in the printed version of the current issue
Bio:
Henry Hughes, a past contributor to Queen’s Quarterly, is the author of four poetry collections, including Men Holding Eggs, which received the Oregon Book Award, and the memoir Back Seat with Fish: A Man’s Adventures in Angling and Romance. Hughes edited the Everyman’s anthologies The Art of Angling: Poems about Fishing and Fishing Stories. His commentary on new poetry appears regularly in Harvard Review.