the revolution of marina m by janet fitch

Though to say “soul” here is already wrong. The voice of the soul is not so easily translated. My English is good enough for the little stories I publish in pulp magazines, but for poetry one needs one’s native tongue. Why don’t you write in English, Marina? asks my friend Elizabeth. Those who love poetry, even my unreadable foreign brand, are a tender breed. No liquor on the premises just now-though it will come soon, down from San Francisco. In a few minutes, I will beach my boat on the pebbly shore and give him his due-we’ll share a bottle of homebrew, or perhaps he comes with a flask. I don’t complain, there are shutters to block out a storm, and an iron stove with a solid pipe. It’s only five dollars, the shack’s not built for winter. I have the money in a cigar box back in my cabin, most of it anyway.

I watch the lanky form of my landlord’s son crossing the shingle, coat collar up, stopping by to collect rents. All one needs is a rented cabin, a decent stove, a small boat, a garden gone to seed for winter. If I knew him better I’d tell him the danger of trusting to solid things. The slow labor of the poet building himself a stone house at the cove’s south end makes for mild entertainment. No boys and girls play on the deserted beach now, only a few stoic fishermen huddle on upturned buckets.

ROCKING ON THE RAZOR-MUSSELED bay, lulled by the sleepy toll of buoy bells, the music of rigging, the eloquent stanzas of the waves, I wait for news from the sea.

The revolution of marina m by janet fitch