After the Shipwreck, 1903

Dawn Potter

Father and I walk down to the sea,

but it hides behind a thicket of fog.

“The sea defies us!” I cry, kicking kelp

and stones. Father laughs and tells me

I am too pompous to be a writer.

            Along the mussel-strewn tide-line,

a gull tears at a forgotten parcel.

            Hoot, hoot, wails a fog-horn

            that no one can see.

Father and I walk down to the sea,

but we cannot reach the shore.

A police-man lays a hand on Father’s arm

and wonders if I am too young

to imagine bodies washing up onto the rocks.

            Once there was a dead cat in the garden.

            Flies clustered in an eye socket.

            I try to remember.

I try to remember.

Father and I walk down to the sea.

The fog has lifted, and a sudden glare dazzles our eyes.

“Tell me about the bodies,” I beg.

Small hissing waves etch shadows on the sand.

Father sighs and says nothing.

            Back and forth, the ships sail.

            Some go to China, some to France.

            I have watched them

            vanish over the edge of the world.

I walk down to the sea alone.

Children splash in a tide-pool

as their mothers sing hymns into the wind.

I do not know them; everyone is strange to me

without Father.

            Somewhere, the dead sprawl

            like split rag-dolls.

Their hands soak up saltwater.

            Their veins leak tears.

“The sea defies us!” I cry before tea.

Father looks up from his journal. He nods,

and is silent. I am too pompous to be a writer.

In the twilight, a police-man trudges uphill,

his boots caked with sand. Already, the lamps are lit.

            China cups and saucers

            circle a silver tray, a cake is sliced,

pale butter melts, the shadows

darken, darken, darken.           

A sea wind rushes among the houses

that cling to the hill. I crane to hear

Father’s nib scratching paper,

his pipe rapping ashes onto the hearth.

His body displaces time like air.

            Father has never sailed in a ship.

            He never swims in the sea.

            I lean against his closed door.

            I write a word in the dust of the hall mirror.

Father walks down to the sea.

I wave from my window, but he does not see me.

In his tall hat and black coat and stout shoes,

he is strange to me; I pretend I do not know him.

Who is that man? I ask myself.

            I think of the women

wailing hymns into the wind,

            how their wet skirts blow back,

            how their icy hands clench against their breasts.

In the blackness beyond lamplight,

the tide rolls in, spilling over the jetty.

I am too young. I rush downstairs, appalled.

“Tell me about the bodies!” I beg.

But Father has not returned from the sea.