Poetic Rowing

Rowing is not a fun sport. It dangles the memory of joy— those first, clean strokes in ’89 but that feeling fades fast.

The 5 a.m. dark. The blisters that weep. Acid in the lungs before breakfast.

A hunger that takes a pound of flesh, then another, until nothing soft remains.

What’s left in the ruin is something earned in the dark. Something holy. And those who find it are never the same.

—anonymous rower One of us