Half Way to Tangier, and: After Touching Dinosaur Bones at the Museum of Natural History

13 Maureen Micus Crisick Half Way to Tangier The village elders tell us: Gd up when there is enough light to see the veins in the hands. We walk miles to the mud flats at Moulay, past a field of horses, their bodies unharnessed. For a few dirham, Karim and his shaky row boat will take us to the lagoon to watch flamingos who winter here. Storks, herons, and white egrets with great appetite for this world. They pronounce us human, fly away. Up from the south, Sudanese women are digging for clams. We offer them bread. How easily your strong hands steady me in the little jostling boat; they turn tender, touch my hair. Sweet voice in the ear. Red pulse, be quiet. The air is full of Sabbath. Be easy, water and tide: this is what I imagine love to be: dark, salty, wet. 14 the minnesota review After Touching Dinosaur Bones at the Museum of Natural History for Mae There's a clearness in the air in Central Park, a fine grass is beginning. Half in, half out of shadow, daffodils bend to do their blossoming. A finch is trying to teach me about song, but it is not necessary. Sun pours on the rainwashed wings, and Latin names of bones return to me: vertebrae,femur, cranium. We know about evolution, the diligence of the spine, the resolve of a woman's pelvic bones. Continuity: I close my eyes, knowing we are not lost and see Rachel, Rachel, looking out to the Hudson River, her sky flooded with chrome. She is making a little boat ofbones, the small ribs turning night and day, bumping against her watery walls, the unborn covered with downy hair, gathering weight for a journey. Webbed hands, how did you get there? So stubborn, so insistent. ...