ISSUE 15 

Christopher Shipman

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Crawl Toward the Shore

 

Lines from Jaws are stuck

in my head. Chief Brody staring out

at the Atlantic. Dirty glass dim with dawn.

His wife Ellen lying in bed

behind him, asking

if he’s seen their kids. He tells her

they must be in the back yard. On the island,

she says, it’s pronounced

yahd. Since the ferry brought my family

to North Haven, ME

I’ve listened for the sound

of that accent—a siren’s song.

 

Back home, my father’s brain

is bleeding. To not throw myself head-first

over the stern of a boat

into the open ocean of that news,

I sit alone in a booth by the row of windows

jotting down scraps

of island accents at the Inn & Market

where my brother-in-law

is one of the few chefs on the island.

 

With enough coffee I conjure up

the courage to talk to Rex, a lifelong islander.

Next day he takes my wife and me

on a tour in his truck.

We pass Pulpit Harbor, get a glimpse

of the massive osprey nest.

We see Ministers Creek, rolling fields, boats

anchored to the fog mull,

the bladderwrack we’d already seen

hiding somewhere below. 

 

After three hours we know

about the Wabanaki. We know which

prominent families are actually from away.

But we also hear Rex say

our nephew Acer is some smaht.  

 

We know Rex’s history too.

From stories about wasps. About a runaway

lawnmower. About a terrier who

ate 100 hormone pills.

We know he didn’t have kids and we know

about his wife Linda.

 

For days we slip over jagged rocks—crawl

toward the shore of every beach

we visit. Time is a mouth

of sharp teeth. All of us victims.

All of us lost or losing. We’re always

going to need a bigger boat.

Even my 12-year-old daughter knows this.

She’s already seen Jaws three times.

 

Back home, my father’s brain

won’t stop bleeding.

My wife sat beside her father’s bed

until he died. My mother-in-law

by the patio window, imagines her husband

playing in the back yard

with their kids, decades before cancer

swallowed his body whole.

 

I remember a story Rex told.

Cancer treatment on the mainland.

Someone vaguely familiar

asked him if he knew a name. Yes, she was

my mother, Rex said.

They both agreed she baked

the best chocolate cake they ever ate.

Then we passed a house

where Rex said a couple had split, 

leaving their two young kids. I don’t know

what’s wrong with the world.

 

I think again about my daughter—how she

would’ve gone on our island trek

with Rex is she wasn’t sick.

I think about my father

alone in a hospital bed. I think about

my mother-in-law. I think

about Rex. All of us stuck beside windows

watching shadows shark by,

trying for as long as possible to love

every single one of them.

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