Casco Passage

i.m. Paul Wood, d. 1999

             By midday, gouts of fog
                       sock in until
we almost think the weather means some harm,
the way it spills over the harbor. Gauzy,
              a trawler on its mooring
              sputters close to home.
                        A level calm.
Seams smoothed, the clouded archway shadowless:
our view lacks eye-holds, like the papered set
              of a photo shoot, merely
                        figure and ground. 

             This morning, as we slept,
                        his boat was found
grinding in circles somewhere near the reach.
A fisherman came on it stymied there,
              recrossing in the spume
              of its own wake, its wheelhouse
                        ghostly, its course
a ring by Titian charcoaled in the sea.
We knew his name. And when it made the news
              the dust of pickups rose
                        to clog the road:

              men set out dragging rigs
                        that yesterday
had yanked up heavy, bruised with mussel shells,
Phoenician purples clustered in a fist.
              Today, they’re hoisted limp—
              a heartache and relief.
                        One snarled clue:
some fouled line sliced from a sinking trap.
Had it jerked him in a whip-crack overboard,
              strength sapped as he flailed
                        to loose his boat?

              Now shoals of mackerel lash
                        in running shallows,
each silver leap skyward through glass survived.
Down on the point, a few last headlights glare,
              then swing wide, then go.
              I have come to the shore
                        to clean a pail,
while you close out the damp in half-lit rooms.
A year ago, we married near this spot,
              where four white pine trees stare
                        over the bay. 

              All week, his wife can watch
                        hope’s half-life split
daily until the hour she knows he’s gone.
But for now: she looks on as he swims
              ashore—“he’s strong, you know?”—
              chokes breath on sand … No sign.
                        Word goes round,
as stories of near-misses start in town:
“Remember in the south, that killing gale?
              After a second night,
                        with the helm

              an icy sledgehammer
                        whanging my ribs,
I leaned down to your mother, who for days
could not look at the waves as high as roofs.
              ‘We’ll die out here,’ I told her,
              letting the tiller go;
                        ‘I’m so damn tired … ’
The wind was through with us two hours later.
Half-sunk, we made land under perfect skies,
              boys out hauling nets
                        struck by the sun.”

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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 18 Number 8, on page 36
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https://newcriterion.com/issues/2000/4/casco-passage