Deer Island, 2010

In a high wind, the island threatens to rip

From the harbor.  Air currents tempt and touch the land swell,

Sweeping through the long grass, whistling

Around anchored stones.  The children and I

Try and spot all the lighthouses on the vacant

Slab spots farther out in the water.  We see a boat on fire.

We discuss the cracked shell of a mussel

On the boardwalk, the effort of a seabird.

We walk on a nice day, and one girl runs ahead

Into the hollowed space between clouds.

On the south end, the sewage plant hums,

The mechanical digestion of city waste.

We listen to a wind turbine spin-

The continuous, measured crashing of a wave.

I show a child the wrinkled bud of a rose hip

And remember eating them

with my mother on Nantucket.   You can make

tea with them, I explain.  They are tart and clean.

But I know my information doesn’t matter just now.

The city rises up on the opposite shore.

What a barren place the island is, with no trees.

People froze here, in the winter

Looking at the small smoke from fires

On the mainland. 

I try and tell the children this,

But ghosts you cannot taste or touch

And children know truth is in the senses.

I try and hear them just the same,

 beneath the turbines,

Their bones beneath the grass.  In the gray water.

They are cracked shells on wet stone.