Grasping at Fog, by Jaime Balboa

Poetry, chapbook, 36 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

Grasping at Fog drifts between the intimate and the elemental, searching for clarity and healing amidst the violence of life. Through poems that move from the quiet moments of parenting to the raw edges of depression, from the charged currents of queer desire to the grounding solace of nature, the collection reveals how tenderness and turbulence coexist.

Fog, the most elusive form of water, is both metaphor and presence—something to be felt, resisted, and sometimes embraced—capturing the ways we reach for meaning even when it slips through our fingers. Water, in some form, is present in every poem. The collection carries a sense of both discipline and surrender. The ocean, with its unpredictability and expanse, echoes throughout the work, offering an elemental backdrop for meditations on friendship, loss, and renewal. Grasping at Fog is not a search for resolution but a practice of attention: a willingness to wade into uncertainty, to find beauty in the blurred outlines, to acknowledge pain, embrace healing, and to honor the fragile connections that steady us amid shifting tides.

Jaime Balboa is an open water swimmer who finds much of his inspiration in the waters of the Pacific. A teacher of writing and youth advocate, his poems and short stories have been featured in The Timberline Review, Bull, Lunch Ticket, Hobart, Streetlight Magazine, and Foglifter Magazine, among others. His first book is a collection of short stories titled Missing Possibilities.