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      October 17, 2024Passenger DeckEric Kocher

      Now we are on the ferry we flew to drive to,
      Its enormous engines vibrating
       
      Every molecule, spreading out,
      A family of ducks getting out of the way.
       
      My wife claims there are fish jumping,
      But every time I look up
       
      They are gone, or she is lying.
      I have become suspicious of my pursuit
       
      Of remoteness, of seeking out places far away
      And difficult to get to,
       
      Places with fewer people, more trees.
      I am suspicious
       
      Because I know it’s at least somewhat
      Insincere, that I very deeply need other people
       
      Around me to feel safe, to feel important,
      That part of my departure is the performance
       
      Of departure, the making of the image of one.
      This departure is certainly
       
      Not about being alone.
      My wife and I are here as a way of being
       
      Even more together than we normally are,
      Or maybe being together
       
      In a way that we used to be all the time
      Before our daughter was born.
       
      Her birth made us closer, for sure,
      It made our little story seem
       
      Impossibly big and important,
      Like we were conducting the soundtrack
       
      To our daughter’s grand entrance
      To being with other people, to being with herself.
       
      But it also made certain parts of ourselves
      And each other seem far away,
       
      Like one of those distant places
      I am always interested in going.
       
      I tell my wife that, of all the places
      On the planet, the place I want most to be
       
      Is the North Pole, that I feel the Arctic calling me
      As if from inside of a dream.
       
      A smaller boat passes by and I’m surprised
      When we are unmoved
       
      By its little wake, that the waves,
      Regardless of their size,
       
      Should rock us, however gently.
      But now we are on this gigantic boat
       
      Looking for those people we used to be,
      Trying to remember them without erasing
       
      Each other, without erasing
      The people that they have become
       
      And all the ways they are growing still.
      We also came here looking for whales,
       
      I should add, that we bought tickets from people
      Who promised we would see them.
       
      And now that we are out here looking
      For ourselves among them,
       
      I have no idea why. Or, maybe,
      I’m worried what might happen if they see me.
       

      from Sky Mall

      Eric Kocher

      “A little over ten years ago, my friend Mark made a joke. He said that I should try to be the first person to publish a poem in Sky Mall Magazine. There was something about shopping for the most inane, kitschy stuff on the planet while flying 30,000 feet above it, just to avoid a moment of boredom, that seemed to be the antithesis of poetry. The words “Sky Mall” got stuck in my head—lodged there. This is almost always how poems happen for me. Language itself seems to be in the way just long enough to build tension before it can open into a space that pulls me forward. These poems finally arrived while I was traveling, first alone, and then the following year with my wife, as a new parent in that hazy dream of the post-pandemic. Writing them felt like going on a shopping spree, of sorts, so I tried to let myself say yes to everything.”

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