The first step to fixing a problem is often recognizing that there is one in the first place. Francisco’s book is a portent written to cure people of their ignorance and prepare them for the inevitable. In A Sinking Ship is Still a Ship, Ariel Francisco warns that there is not enough room on this small Earth for everything, and due to rising water and the rapacious lifestyle of tourists, residents of Miami, Florida may not be left with a space they can call home.  Ariel Francisco depicts water as the main threat in A Sinking Ship is Still a Ship. In his poems, “Spring Break Forever,” and “305 Till I Die,” Francisco cautions that the inhabitants of Miami cannot survive the water that will eventually drown the city. The speaker of the poems suggests that everyone will die, and all things that humans created will be lost. In “Poem Written in the Parking Lot of a Tattoo Shop While Waiting For My Appointment,” he argues against the permanence of human presence on the Earth; he instead admits that the end is inevitable. Francisco’s poems suggest that most people remain purposefully ignorant to their own end by pushing the idea away, pretending it does not exist, or making it a future generation's problem. Francisco calls them out for their ignorance. In “Don’t Ever Come to Florida,” he points out what is being ignored and displays it in a way the readers cannot ignore in hopes that they will stop escalating the problem.