The Wife of Mission Rock

By Mary Ruefle b. 1952 Mary Ruefle

Nothing curves at sea,

and the men there die abruptly,

in imitation of the fact, except

when the ship rises higher than necessary

and then they must drop suddenly

but for a long time,

so that their deaths appear natural

in the end, and the women sweeping the coutyards

pause, thinking the dust

to be the cause of a specific dryness

in the mouth. They leave half of a

pastry to harden on a plate.

They leave all of the lemons and figs

in bowls. They leave fuschia

splattered on the stone steps leading

down to the bay. They carry their brooms

with them, keep sweeping the air,

cleaning it back to the sea.

They sweep the sand from the shore,

feet standing in neat little rows of foam.

Each at the edge of something when

the foghorns remind them:

they will not clearly remember it,

they will not altogether forget it.

They will wait for something to emerge,

like a man at sea carving his children

from soap. One woman will start the rumor

that the sea is deeper than necessary:

Tell her, when has anyone ever come back

for one day’s effort on earth?

Source: Life Without Speaking (The University of Alabama Press, 1982)

Biography

Though poet and essayist Mary Ruefle was born outside Pittsburgh, she spent her youth moving around the United States and Europe with her military family.

She has written numerous books of poetry, including Indeed I Was Pleased with the World (2007) and The Adamant (1989), which won the Iowa Poetry Prize. A Little White Shadow (2006), her book of erasures—found texts in which all but a few words have been erased from the . . .

Continue reading this biography