From a Portland poet

Here is a rather haunting poem by Portland's Mike Bove.  It won a prize from the Maine Poets Society this week.
Mike teaches at Southern Maine Community College.  His first poetry collection was BIG LITTLE CITY (Moon Pie Press, 2018) and his second was HOUSE MUSEUM (Moon Pie Press, 2021).


A NOTE TO MARGARET FULLER AS HER SHIP GOES DOWN


You’re off the coast of Fire Island and your ship 
hit a shoal or reef and your young son 
is in your arms and your husband is there, or he’s 
your partner and you’re not married, 
the biographers aren’t sure, but you’ve been 
in Italy for years loving him and writing 
and raising a child, which isn’t something 
you thought you wanted when you left Concord 
where you walked with Emerson and rowed 
with Thoreau— now hold on to that deck-rail 
though it’s soaked with rain, and hold on to 
your child though the crewmen are yelling 
to put him in a lifeboat, and search the sky
in all directions for light though you can’t tell 
which way is east, and cry, Margaret, you have to 
cry, because you don’t know how this ends 
but we do— we know your ship goes down, we know 
your little boy drowns, we know you 
and your husband die and most of the crew, 
and we know they’ll never find your body 
though pieces of the ship will wash ashore
and someone will recover some of your letters 
but not the book you were finishing, 
and people in town will catch wind of the wreck 
and the items washed up and some of them 
will come to the water to scavenge 
for things to sell and Emerson will get 
an urgent message and send Thoreau 
to look for you and when he arrives 
on the beach the ship will be gone and he’ll see 
a scattering of people going through 
the wreckage and one of them will be 
wearing your coat and he’ll manage to 
tear away a single brass button he’ll hold 
in his palm when the sky clears and the sun
strikes it creating a glint we’ll remember forever 
because we can see it all the way from here.