Lupita Eyde-Tucker
Elegy for a Main Sail & Jib
On the bare-poled deck of Fellowship,
defrocked of sails, the mast is an upper-case L
against the horizon. The sea-state underscores
the feeling of loss: flat, passive, mirror-like.
We blew out every sail over the years, ripped,
sometimes repaired, until the mending overwhelmed.
Empty lazarettes echo like Sartre. Why distort
a past that can no longer stand up for itself?
Unraveled lines hang like tears. Neither of us
can bear to junk her, but the energy’s gone
for a refit. Part of me wishes we could set her free,
push her far offshore, away from us cannibals.
Unclothed from our human inconsistencies
she has a better chance of staying afloat.
Lupita Eyde-Tucker reads “Elegy for a Main Sail & Jib”
Lupita Eyde-Tucker was born in New Jersey and raised in Guayaquil, Ecuador where she began writing and translating poetry in English and Spanish. Her poems appear in Columbia Journal, Raleigh Review, Women’s Voices for Change, [PANK], American Life in Poetry, MER, and Ninth Letter. Since 2018 she has been translating Venezuelan poet Oriette D’Angelo. A mother of five children, Lupita is pursuing an MFA in Poetry at the University of Florida and has received fellowships and institutional support from Kentucky Women Writers Conference, Bread Loaf Writers Conferences, the NY State Summer Writers Institute, and Vermont Studio Center. Read more at: www.NotEnoughPoetry.com