The Harbor

By RICHIE HOFMANN

Afterwards everything whitened

like paper or breath—

The room was suddenly anchored to itself,

the chains stopped groaning.

I knew I could not leave with you.

The sea outside was like the sea

on the map. A sea-god was blowing

into a crosshatched arc of sails.

Richie Hofmann is the recipient of a 2012 Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship. His poems appear or are forthcoming in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, and Ploughshares, among other journals.

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The Harbor

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