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Return
To Narragansett
by
Anna Evans
Once
we were kids in
Narragansett Bay.
I
don’t recall
the tide or time
of day
I
met the sisters;
that is close
to myth –
like
bone and shell
compacted underneath
the
weight of years
to black gold.
It was hot;
the
sea and sky almost
one blue. I’ve
not
forgotten
how I watched
them, with one
hand
to
shield me from
the sun, my toes
in sand,
before
I knew their names.
Now one is dead,
and
I, who’ve
never built a
boat, have said
I’ll
take it on: that
Bahamina boat
she
wouldn’t
scrap. I’ll
mend it, make
it float
and
call it something
so we will remember
the
way she was; her
boys will cut
the timber.
I’ll
build it in her
name and for my
wife,
her
sister. We stumble
when we lose a
life
as
if we slid on
shale, but out
of stone
come
many gifts, and
she, of course,
was one.
A
story is a gift,
so is hard labor
at
something unaccustomed,
yet I’ll
savor
each
mis-hit nail.
This will be myth
tomorrow.
Whatever
we do we die:
that is our sorrow.
But
I will build this
boat. One seamless
day
I’ll
raise its sail
in Narragansett
Bay.
©
2006 by Anna Evans
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