Chéticamp, N.S.

i.e. my grandfather’s Chéticamp, which never quite let him go

On the beach the waves are clutchers,

Bone-white, grasping shoal and shale,

Fearing the curled-lip and toothsome

Chew of the cannibal sea.

They pull toward the fastened shacks,

A dry docked rainbow that taunts their fingers.

And here, in the sea-surge of youth,

If he can’t cut himself away,

A man gets early anchored by the cling

Of bait-reek, and the grip of a sturdy girl

With coal-dark eyes and cradles on her mind.

It isn’t every boy loves the chafe of twine,

The salt-spray kisses, the damp of rubber

Boots and waders. Not everyone can stand

The lonely circumference of the sea,

With just a three-man crew and maybe a minke whale

That draws her arc across the surface,

Baleen sifting the dark chop-water,

Flukes steering her clear of drop nets.

Her large eye will steady on your business

As she comes alongside, then she’ll lean away

And in a flash of silver-white she’s gone,

And you’re left at the gunnels with the slap

Of the hull and the sea-sick coming on every wave.

After two long days you’ve caught

Some crab and not much sleep

And a cold, likely as not.

And after you feel you’ve unloaded your guts with the catch,

And your room’s full of books you’re too tired to read,

And the bar’s full of girls too homely to hit on,

There’s nothing but tomorrows and a void in your bowels

And a salt-worn face no dryfoot will mock

‘Cause theirs ain’t much more handsome.

But I’ll tell you: there’s a kind of grace in the curl of a cigarette’s smoke,

And something religious almost in scratching a three-days beard.

And it’s really something when the deep sea is still

And the sunlight freckles the waters.

You can’t hardly help but knuckle down and feel it: the quick

Victory of the heavy trap, the bulging twine,

The leavened weight of molasses,

Dark tea, strong enough to make your teeth cross.

You almost want to fear that dark mouth,

Crouched in wait beneath the hull,

And tempt its sudden jaws, where the waves smack

Their lips and swallow.

An earlier version of this poem was shortlisted for the Descant/Winston Collins Prize.

Copyright © by David C.C. Bourgeois, 2021.

For permissions, contact the author.