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  • Winter at Fenwick Island
  • Jeanne Murray Walker (bio)

Ranks of breakers stampede this rock,  scattering and spraying into   night, like white mares slippinghalters. I stand up and wring out  my shirt, give the damn water back, [End Page 37]

thinking if only things would stay put,  easing off my boots, tossing them   to a rock, an act so extravagant,although their soles are worn through,  still, so profligate,

that as I turn away, I know  it must be you I'm trying to leave.   This wild shore feels like shortage,raw wind and no horizon, nothing here  but not-you and havoc

in the mad kinetics of the universe,  so I place you where you were,   cross-legged on our floor,running our family movie backward,  showing us how the gull reversed his lunge

for bass, how the sun sails backward into clouds,  how tiny we are, unshedding coats—   the bright movie twitching,pieces lurching together, hello, goodbye,  it happened, is happening.

We made up the scene from scraps  of light, not knowing how, but sure   the movie was more realthan the bed sheet where it flickered.  This isn't you, shimmering

on these little scalloped waves of ocean.  It's the sea, I know, scattering its voice   into the night: Nothingis ever gone. Nothing is  ever gone for good. [End Page 38]

Jeanne Murray Walker

Jeanne Murray Walker's most recent book of poetry is New Tracks, Night Falling (William B. Eerdmans). Her poems and essays have appeared in many periodicals, including Poetry, Georgia Review, and Atlantic Monthly, as well as Best American Poetry. Walker is a frequent speaker at poetry festivals, conventions, churches, and universities. She teaches at the University of Delaware and serves as a mentor in the Seattle Pacific University mfa.

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