The Michigan Quarterly Review

Impulse

Fog horn. Open the window, you'll hear it, there
        beneath the refrigerator's hum and the rain's
light drill. Barely there—the lure of sirens through wax—
        submerged in darkness and rain, miles
on miles of scrub pine, the sleepwalk of rosa rugosa.

Hold your breath—there—the wave slipping on wave
        spacing, a summons no longer heeded, not with radar
and running lights. Effortless, serene—tankers keep
        within pulses of red light, white light chambering
the old canal. And any ten-year-old in a catboat knows enough

of currents and wrecks to keep clear of Wings Neck
        by dark. But I've only days, not summers,
and the moon's at the sill. Sleep undone
        by the thunder low tone. Tide, high; rift
whitening quick as thought. If not for the child—

innocent of whim—tightly curled as a fiddlehead fern—
        but I'd walk slowly. The path to the beach
moss and sand, moon at my shoulder passing
        through firs; no steps would jar, she could sleep.
No current to speak of—only the light shake of rigging

in an offshore breeze. Just as much stir as the float bobbing
        at our dinghy's prow. And this child so much further
than the last, nearly the seventh month. Surely the womb's
        quiet, not unlike a tamed cove. How cleanly channel markers
lean to their bell-rocked time and the fog horn urging:

Not to worry, safe—safe. The waters just a moment chill,
        the current lulled—a mother's rocking. Three or four
strokes from shore, just far enough to see how fog shoulders
        the headland in white. Then the eddying pull of a red buoy,
the sweet rip of current furling, easing—there now, there.

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