- Winter at Fenwick Island
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'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.