Matthew DeLuca




The loony boatman crashes
the cheer-ragged waves,
and along the canal
a girl dances for her mother.
I wonder about everything
that is unwondered
about life,
with the smell of fish and brine,
and the water that holds
and persists and yields
and does not.
Grey-purple as well as blue.

And to say something
about life tonight—
myself, the sinking sun,
the girl’s dance, the
boatman’s grin—
is that the incidence of flowers
easy afloat atop the lagoon
is fed by roots
that reach deep elsewhere,
beneath the silver-green
reflecting nightly waters.





Matthew DeLuca is a poet living in New York. He is a graduate of Boston College and Fordham University School of Law. His poems have been published in Offcourse, The Amsterdam Review, Wild Court, Open Ceilings and elsewhere.