“You push motherfucker…” she spit, mellifluous as a barrel organ, teeth clamped, eyes clenched, her hair, bright gold at the tips, black earth at the roots, drenched and sticky with the mud of childbirth.

“I wish I could, Honey.” She didn’t know how much. I wanted to experience the closeness, to feel it growing, to know that life exits long before one sees it. “Keep going we’re almost there.”

“We…?” and she pushed. I leaned and kissed her forehead. “You’re doing great.” Salt lanced my tongue.

The crystals were part of the air, part of my being. They crusted my lips and cheeks, coated my lungs. They permeated the heavy blue threads of my foul weather jacket, gleamed metallic in the sun, wedged cracks from the black waxed wrinkles in my deck boots.

Green-clad shapes stood about the room, arms extending here and there, checking. Eyes and masks seemed to lack expression, and a pair of hands poised palms up, waiting as Jenn’s body contracted, the whole of her rolling, pushing.

The crew chipped, primered and painted daily, protecting the ship from rust, a monotonous and infinite chore. Men often swung over the side, precariously seated on boatswain’s chairs, a thick piece of board with rope. They swung as the ship turned and swayed, working their nailguns and brushes, the only thing between them and certain death, a thin lifeline, manned by an unseen shipmate far above on deck. Despite their relentless labor, when they rose from their berths in the morning, red sores could be found, trickling down from the grey bulkheads.

I would walk the ship at night, drawing as much of myself as I could from my surroundings, my sea legs carrying me as if on steady land, through the passageways and hatches, down ladders and up them. Eventually I would come to a light locker and step inside. I would batten the hatch behind me, placing myself in blackness, cut off from the only light available on the ship at night, the eerie red glow of passage lamps. Then I would feel for the door opposite me, its latches, the wheel in its center. Out I would go, dogging the door behind me, welcoming the sea. At night, sometimes all was black, and sometimes the waves were crested with silver, depending on the cycles of the moon.

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