MAR Vol. XXXIV, no. 2<\/i><\/p>\n
Darkness outside. Inside, the radio\u2019s prayer\u2014<\/em> There are storms walking the waters a rain so persistent it seems still, is moving them for us. This, then, when I was a child, worse things <\/em> whatever it was she was doing, in her hands like the stems of silver grasses. And we Hebrides, Bailey, Fair Isle; Dogger, back pocket, I would dream of great trawlers and a handful of following gulls cuffed too\u2014northern pirates from Grimsby or Hull\u2014 that snapped like dogs. And I was young, only men who are willing to inhabit Now and then, the distant, unfaltering grind am a child no longer, and her skin at me and says, worse things, remember, <\/em> on short rafts of breath. For now, there is nothing or a table on a cross-channel ferry. As if on the Stena Britannica<\/em> to the Hook of Holland. we know it. And each morning I run the fine, I am keeping vigil, reading, beside her, there is death, dressed up in abstractions\u2014passion, by machete. No sound but the rasp of her left palm firmly anchored, she lifts in fifty years, that hand bereft is open-mouthed, like rain. I woke up, she\u2019d said, and my wedding ring <\/em> must have made her tired. I remember my father over the beige linoleum, sifting dust on his knees before every flower bed. off the hills, as they do, for bright things<\/em>. Because I think it will calm her, and I place my hand, like a little roof, or feathery about it; it is nothing at all is determined, insistent, like the muscled heave And you simply cannot argue before the battlements of her coma, cannot quiet her, until, Even the dead. The earth is moving them for us. from FitzRoy to Shannon, and this for every hour death kept us waiting. of an overrun country. How even my father\u2019s hands The Shipping Forecast Jude Nutter MAR Vol. XXXIV, no. 2 Darkness outside. Inside, the radio\u2019s prayer\u2014 Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finistere.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-689","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/midamericanreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/midamericanreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/midamericanreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/midamericanreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/midamericanreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/midamericanreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":690,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/midamericanreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/689\/revisions\/690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/midamericanreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nRockall. Malin. Dogger. Finistere. <\/em>
\n\u2014Carol Ann Duffy<\/em><\/p>\n
\nof Viking and Utsire, and gale-force winds
\nfrom FitzRoy to Shannon, and for days, now,<\/p>\n
\nlike something solid fixed to the garden.
\nEverything moves, even the dead. The earth<\/p>\n
\nis what it comes to: earth spin, rain and wind.
\nRemember<\/em>, she would say, as a form of comfort<\/p>\n
\nhappen at sea<\/em>. Early evening, dinner over
\nand the table cleared, she would stop<\/p>\n
\nthe clean, white disc of a plate,
\nor a clutch of rinsed utensils, their bodies<\/p>\n
\nwould listen, mute and motionless,
\nfor three minutes of common gratitude. Malin,<\/p>\n
\nFisher, German Bight. It was better than prayer.
\nSheeted and safely tucked into the dark\u2019s<\/p>\n
\nmoving, inevitably, into fearsome weather.
\nThe chewed edge of a bow wave,<\/p>\n
\nback and forth through night\u2019s black wall
\ninto the reach of the running lights. There were men,<\/p>\n
\ngoing out like boys, full-lunged
\namong their own kind, with tales of winter stars<\/p>\n
\nof course; of course I was a child, but this
\nis how it came to pass that I can love<\/p>\n
\nthe darkness I have invented for them. October.
\nDarkness running aground by five o\u2019clock.<\/p>\n
\nof a westbound jet, heading out
\nacross the Atlantic. Even now, when I<\/p>\n
\nhas been debrided by drugs
\nand by chemicals, my mother looks<\/p>\n
\nhappen at sea<\/em>. Bedridden, barely speaking,
\nsending her words out like castaways<\/p>\n
\nworse than this. Now, her bed is a corral
\nwith bright chrome railings, like a berth<\/p>\n
\nshe isn\u2019t falling already.\u00a0 As if her dying
\nis simply a crossing<\/p>\n
\nShe is a few days out
\nfrom death. And we know it. Without knowing<\/p>\n
\ndark bristles of an expensive brush
\nwith a tortoiseshell handle through her hair.<\/p>\n
\nsurprising myself with my appetite
\nfor murder because in every story<\/p>\n
\nmadness, grief, revenge; here is death
\nat the hands of others\u2014by bullet, by Semtex, by Sarin,<\/p>\n
\nand catch of her breathing, and a faint
\nspackle of agitation as, with the heel<\/p>\n
\neach finger in turn into a ripple, a wriggle,
\nan undulation against the covers. For the first time<\/p>\n
\nof its ring. Which had slipped off, somewhere,
\nas dying belittled every part of her. A ring<\/p>\n
\nAnd when she lost it, she knew it
\nwithout knowing she knew it. This morning<\/p>\n
\nwas gone: I felt its absence <\/em>
\nbefore I opened my eyes<\/em>. Such emptiness<\/p>\n
\nsearching, emptying the Hoover
\nonto newspapers neatly spread<\/p>\n
\nfrom one page to another. I remember him
\nin his privet-green Wellingtons, down<\/p>\n
\nIf the ring were lost in the garden<\/em>, she\u2019d said,
\nperhaps the ravens have come down <\/em><\/p>\n
\nI could live with a loss like that.
\nWe are still hoping<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\nI brush her hair, relishing its slight resistance,
\nthe faint clicks of static;<\/p>\n
\nover her hand, but her fingers
\nkeep moving and there is nothing fleeting<\/p>\n
\nlike the fremitus of startled birds or the forays
\nof wind through long grasses. Her touch<\/p>\n
\nof water; like a wave, which is, after all,
\nmerely energy passing through matter.<\/p>\n
\nwith the muscularity of water. Even my father,
\nwho has been holding out<\/p>\n
\noffering up, on a teaspoon,
\npale slumps of applesauce and honey,<\/p>\n
\nfrom a box on the dresser, he takes a ring\u2014
\ntoo large, too heavy, a single pearl
\nin a noose of sapphires\u2014and threads
\nher finger through it. And some fretting animal at last
\nlowers its head to rest. Everything moves.<\/p>\n
\nAnd there are storms walking the waters
\nof Viking and Utsire, and gale-force winds<\/p>\n
\nis what it comes to: earth spin, wind and rain.
\nI shall remember how I was grateful<\/p>\n
\nI shall remember how when her hand fell still
\nI missed its movement. Pale flag<\/p>\n
\ncould not calm her. How I did not brush
\nthe fine waves of my mother\u2019s hair enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"