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2008 Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award - Special Merit

The Rescue

People use the word 'closure.' It's not about closure, it's more about justice. 

 ―  John Walsh, father to Adam Walsh.


Today in the news: Miraculous Rescue
An uncle drags a shark to shore

to save his near-dead nephew.
A bull of a shark, the arm that it tore

from the boy when he waved for help
fueled the beast's palate; its tail

in the uncle's grip, a blur of blood claret and kelp;
the husks from his palms, a grim and edible kale.

I want a shark that I can wrestle
and make it spit you out. To make it yearn

for its strength, to thrash about as I nestle
its nose in my grip. I want to turn

you loose from a palpable place: a well, a shed, a jaw.
I want the monster to face me and beg for the law.




.

Copyright © 2007 M. B. McLatchey.   All rights reserved.
Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award - Special Merit.
Published in The Comstock Review, January 2008.

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