Lobster Season

My dad puffs on his cigar. Red embers dance like a lady bug

in moonlight.

Concrete and brick flakes

escape Worcester's abandoned structures.

My dad's cigar withers, he turns to ash.

Winds of a Nor'easter

carry him to Boston Harbor. Lobster season came with the storm and left with his ashes. Gloucester men

lean over the portside railings and fall into the sea.

Their bodies float to places

where the tourists point. They say "these men were the ocean" and other clichés

too painful to list.

The lobsters move north along the Atlantic.

Not one remains.

Seif-Eldeine Och graduated from Tufts University with a degree in Middle Eastern Studies. He fell in love with Arab and Middle Eastern poets like Khalil Gibran, Rumi, Abu Nuwas and Nizar Qabbani. In his free time, Seif-Eldeine likes to play basketball, lift weights and box. He also writes articles about psychology, the Celtics, health and writes book reviews.