Home
About the Program
PPLP Calendar
Building the ARTS Community
Hoot Night
Poems From the Hoot
Meet the Poet Laureate
Esther Buffler Residency
Poet Laureates - Past
Board of Directors
Contact Us

Back to Meet the Poet

The Tugs
By John Perrault

Up river
three harbor tugs
nose a crippled tanker
majestic with rust
to the terminal dock 

they hug close
like calf whales to a stricken cow
not about to let go
not about to let the tide
push them around

a shag sails down
skimming the eel grass
the glistening muck and plastic wrack
to land on a piling

watches as they nudge her in
holding fast
tending the gash in her side 

even with her lashed tight
the tugs hang on 

even with the job done
bobbing in a slick of oil

now the smaller one
glides slowly out toward open water
spouting smoke

now
the others.

 

                                                     copyright 1989, 2002, John Perrault

(an earlier version of this poem was first published in the spring/summer 1989 issue of Soundings East; the above version was reprinted in the PPLP’s anthology, Portsmouth Unabridged, M. Tirabassi, ed.)

Back to top