Two Poems | Christine Jackson — The Sam Hill! Review

Morningstar 1410 to 2020

I bury my wife and son lost to plague covid turn from my field of rotting stalks, black from earth’s betrayal put the house up for sale I march, weak with rheumy fever, feet wrapped in burlap demonic drive across the desert Vegas rises, gold tipped El Dorado, western hills gleam like paradise. One more day means victory at Grunwald. Wagon tracks mucked and mired lead with pledges of glory to bars and crap table promises. God’s providence shines warm on my face. Wood cracks, a cool AC wind whooshes, and masked men on clanking horseback push air tanks and gurneys, wield weapons and surgical instruments, drop from trees, from IV poles wild riders hurling clubs, whirling deadly spiked balls from chains. In morning light, blood-tipped barbs glisten on lab slides. One ball finds me, and my ear explodes with shrieks from a million half-dead souls. Two bodies drop with a splat, mouths full of spit and mud, chests heaving final spasms pressed by hands of a cold earth.

From the Journal of Mary Strout, Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife, 1886

Christmas Eve—Squawking chickens make me laugh. Joshua brings an arm load from town, eight fat ones. Young Joseph helps with chopping and plucking for my savory meat pies. By nightfall, they are ready, but an icy gale whips sleet into snow squalls. Thunder pounds the rock ledge anchoring the lighthouse.

11:30 pm—A yowling wind. Outside, a crash, lumber cracking, men hollering. I part the curtain. The top beacon from the tower flashes over a three-masted barque wedged in jagged boulders just below. I cut blankets into strips, soak them in kerosene, and wrap them on broomsticks for torches. We rush to the screams, fire whipping like flags in the wind.

Joshua rigs a long ladder from the ledge to the ship as a gangplank. Joseph runs lines for handholds, making me proud. A woman staggers through sea spray, Captain O’Neil’s wife, we find out. Three more cross, heads down, gripping the thick rope. When a strong squall jolts the ship, a crewman slips and drops into the sea, like chum from a fishing line.

Christmas morning—The crewman is lost. At the house kitchen, I brew coffee, heat pies for our exhausted shivering guests. The Annie C. Maguire out of Buenos Aires was headed to Quebec. Captain claims to have no idea he was in Portland harbor. The bosun and other men re-cross to bring cases of whiskey from the hold of Annie C. Joshua tells the men of a sailors’ shelter in town but they refuse, too drunk to move, eating all our stores.

Three days after Christmas: They finally sober up and leave.

New Year’s Eve: Sheriff Boyd from Portland crosses the harbor to ask what we know about the ship’s log, cash, and jewels from the Annie C. We have no idea. We later learn that Captain O’Neil and his wife had removed all valuables from the ship in a hatbox. I want my pies back.