Stella Davis
The Drowning
(Invited to the premiere of the 1998 film Titanic was 88 year old Mrs Millvina Dean, survivor of the Titanic's sole voyage. She left before the film was shown.)
She did not stay for the drowning,
only lending herself, in her old age,
to the fatal name, a quiet recognition.
Lifeboat survivor,
she did not stay for reconstructions
of that infamous night, nor wait to see
the artifice of light romance
pinioned to an infant memory.
Throughout the body's watery courses
run echoes of the sea: we cannot help
our own liquidity, our channelled tides.
But for this baby rocked all night
in an open boat, little girl lullabied
by flurries of submersion, wild
and weakening efforts of the drowned,
the hapless solubility
of human hopes in water
led her, in contained old age,
to shun drowning as entertainment.
So after the photo–call, and her exposure
to movie–goers' curiosity
but before the film began, this aged lady
drove off across the darkening city,
washed by eagres of experience,
carrying in her tholing arms
the fatherless self of her long life,
and in her veins
a knowledge of the drowning
for which she and her mother
had not stayed.
She did not stay for the drowning,
only lending herself, in her old age,
to the fatal name, a quiet recognition.
Lifeboat survivor,
she did not stay for reconstructions
of that infamous night, nor wait to see
the artifice of light romance
pinioned to an infant memory.
Throughout the body's watery courses
run echoes of the sea: we cannot help
our own liquidity, our channelled tides.
But for this baby rocked all night
in an open boat, little girl lullabied
by flurries of submersion, wild
and weakening efforts of the drowned,
the hapless solubility
of human hopes in water
led her, in contained old age,
to shun drowning as entertainment.
So after the photo–call, and her exposure
to movie–goers' curiosity
but before the film began, this aged lady
drove off across the darkening city,
washed by eagres of experience,
carrying in her tholing arms
the fatherless self of her long life,
and in her veins
a knowledge of the drowning
for which she and her mother
had not stayed.
Page(s) 21
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The