Toy Boat (for Tamir Rice)
by Ocean Vuong
yellow plastic
black sea
eye-shaped shard
on a darkened map
no shores now
to arrive—or
depart
no wind but
this waiting which
moves you
as if the seconds
could be entered
& never left
toy boat—oarless
each wave
a green lamp
outlasted
toy boat
toy leaf dropped
from a toy tree
waiting
waiting
as if the sp-
arrows
thinning above you
are not
already pierced
by their own names
published in Poetry, April 2016
Most Poetry will post a poem by a LGBTQ+ poet, selected by our members, each day through the month of August.