Refugee Ship is an outcry of a person with no home experiencing an identity crisis. Cervantes pictures immigration to another country as a ship – something unstable, moving somewhere but never coming to the shore.
It is a beautiful metaphor for the homeless feeling that immigrants have because they are connected to their homeland by thing lines – “my grandmother’s eyes”, “Bible at her side”, and traditional pudding. None of these is enough to feel entirely ingrained into the culture, but also, it will never let go fully; the ship “will never doc”.
Thus, Cervantes rejects the possibility of complete cultural assimilation for herself, and she feels stuck in a constant in-between state without coming back.