She’d taken the job
as a biologist
aboard an Alaskan fishing vessel,
seasick for fifteen days straight,
vomiting, desperately trying
to monitor
each haul of rockfish
the fishermen hoisted
onto the rough back
of the Bering Sea,
the peak of each wave,
the crest of my voice
coming through the earpiece
of a satellite phone,
twenty bucks a minute:
I asked her to marry me.
When the ship finally docked,
she was a wreck,
escaped a summer squall just barely,
never found
her sea legs, gave up,
fell asleep inside
a Kodiak airport
while she waited for her flight home,
a dim glow buoyed
to the horizon.
She dreamed that she set off
on wobbling foot into the wild
backwoods of Alaska,
and inside
the lichen green of midnight
she saw a cabin
peeking out
from the mountains
with me standing
on the front porch
whittling a stick to a point.
She watched me volley it
into the air,
watched it rise
in its parabolic arc
and stick lovingly
into the ground at her feet.
I told her our marriage
would arc just like that,
so she took the ring off the javelin
and put it on. It came to life,
wrapped a tendril up her arm
and she too came to life,
no longer seasick,
no longer homesick,
no longer alone
and puking headlong
into a bucket.
I wrapped a quilt
over her chilled shoulders
and followed her inside
where a fireplace
gnawed mindlessly
on hunks of cedar.
She dreamed
she was finally home,
and we made love
for the first time in months,
almost like strangers,
the sound of our names
cracking
between the teeth of the fire.
Photo By: Beverley Goodwin
