Warm winds meet cold waters, raise folds
of Maine fog. It slows my car, it flicks
on my headlights feeling around
for each cliff-edge, each threat
lurking in the mist like distant thunder.
Or that thing that blurries dreams,
that abandons us on an edge of revelation.
I admire this Maine, have come to its edge
to pursue, to measure, to master. Oceanography.
But the science – the numbers, the microscopes,
or papers – cannot hold the breadth of this Atlantic,
my black depth, my blue dream, the void
that opens in a hunted school of mackerel,
tornado-swirl of silver dissolving into dark.
I am home here. In the cold, sopping wet,
unable to see past the length of my arm.
I drive the roads of mid-coast.
I could never recognize anything in this place.
The Damariscotta River knows this.
This placeless poem knows this.
I pull over, enter the cold empire,
water spiders, dragonflies glance the surface.
It looks like seaweed, that red snake of a body
drifting towards me. I reach to touch, but Chrysaora
quinquecirrha, the Atlantic sea nettle,
wraps its tentacles down to the bone
of my wrist, clings so tight my pulse
erupts in fire. I don’t let go. What if you wanted
a love so much you would take its poison
on your own tongue. Rough to rough,
predator to prey. This is what I love
and what I lose again, no matter what form
I come in. Again and again, I come in.
—
Emily Knight serves as senior manager for the Lenfest Ocean Program, a grant-making program with the Pew Charitable Trusts that invests in scientific research to address the needs of ocean and coastal managers and policymakers. She holds an MS in Oceanography from the University of Maine and is currently a student in the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. Her most recent publication appeared in Thimble Literary Magazine.
