Gustav Hibbett
Image by Tim Hill from Pixabay
Gustav Parker Hibbett is a Black poet, essayist, and MFA dropout. Originally from New Mexico, they are currently pursuing a PhD at Trinity College Dublin. They are a 2022 Djanikian Scholars Semifinalist and a 32 Poems Featured Emerging Poet, and their most recent work appears or is forthcoming in Banshee, Pigeon Pages, River Heron Review, Adroit, Belfield Literary Review, and Icarus. You can also find them on Twitter (@gustav_parker) and Instagram (@gustavparker).
Red Sky at Morning
The morning we set out for Athens,
I had never seen the sky so red. Ruby,
almost, and we sailed into it. The first time
in ages I saw my story ending somewhere
bright; my future engraved delicate
on a greater being’s finest gemstone.
Our ship’s sails full with west-bound wind,
we moved as though conducted, Zeus electric.
All of this: an omen I was still too new
to understand. The day to come, of course,
brought storms; as a captain, you were cold
and clumsy, in that way I’d found so charming
yesterday; I was stiffer, smaller, than I thought
I’d feel at sea. Petrified. What kind of hands
had I given myself into? I wanted, now,
to pull back from surrender. So much power
you hadn’t learned yet to control. A boyish pride
that would preclude admitting this. And me,
so far beyond my element; here, among the waves,
the self I knew on land felt distant. As thunder broke
and sea winds stirred torrential, I saw a fissure
in the sky flash bright, then split.
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