Seagrass Funeral for a Migrant Father and Child By Shelby Brown

The Rising Phoenix Review

June 15

Seagrass Funeral for a Migrant Father and Child

A father and his child climbed into an inflatable raft
with nothing but the clothes on their backs

because home is gunfire and starvation.
Home is bombs and cities crumbling like sandcastles.

The raft pushed into the ocean was plastic,
but it might as well be made of paper.

It's the kind we'd use to float
down a river in the drowsy golden summer.

Our bellies are full and we're drunk
on the luxury of having nothing better to do.

Photos capture our grins and cheeks flushed from the sun.
Our homes and families never doubt that we'll return.

There is a photo of the father and his child.
They're both face down in muddy water.

The grasses by the shore just barely brush their bodies
like the reeds tried to pull them to safety and failed.

Now the fronds can only try to cover them
and hold a quiet funeral.

The seagrass will keep vigil over the barefoot father
who thought to put his child under his shirt.

The seagrass will watch over the child,
now just red shorts and little shoes under stretched fabric.

As I write this, I watch my daughter on the baby monitor app
and she cuddles her Elmo doll.

She doesn't want to take her morning nap
I can hear her humming to herself through my phone's speakers

and tears stream down my cheeks
because I know

I would've tucked her into my shirt
like the father did with his child

To keep him from getting lost
In the vast, unforgiving sea.

By Shelby Brown

Biography:

Shelby Brown is a writer and journalist. Her work has appeared in The Bookends Review, Glass Mountain, Outlook Springs, and The Black Horse Review. She's reported for CNET, Cord Cutters News, and Louisville Magazine. She has also served as the Creative Non-Fiction Editor and a guest editor for The Miracle Monocle. She lives in Kentucky with her husband, daughter, plants, and cats.