“In the morning, we are ships,” Poem, Maria Giesbrecht.

Sorry, I mean we sleep

beside each other in the hell

of morning, mouths sloppily

closed, your eyelashes yolked

over, buzz like little beasts, as if to wake

you gently. The freckles in the hull

of your face swim to the surface.

What feels more like waking up

drenched in together,

than moving this ship, one oar each,

back to the yellow shore?

Maria Giesbrecht is a Canadian poet whose work explores her Mexican and Mennonite roots. Her writing has appeared in The Literary Review of Canada, Grain, ONLY POEMS, San Pedro River Review, and elsewhere. She is the winner of the 2025 Jack McCarthy Book Prize, a Best of Net nominee, and the founder of Gather, an international writing community that connects poets worldwide. Born in Durango, Mexico, she now lives in Toronto, Canada with her fiancée.