Lines

it messes with my

mind and heart, these

Titanic exhibits like

the one in Atlanta,

the Immersive

Experience

(no pun intended,

I’m sure, but I’d

have chosen a

different name)

I learned about the

Titanic as a child when

an elderly couple in

our church were

on the next boat out

late for their honeymoon

on the Titanic ~

the Testers, Mr. and Mrs.,

lived because they were

late, and for all the

cussing I might have

muttered missing my boat,

I’d have learned a

thing or two about

what it means to

let things go

and move on

I can’t imagine the terror

inside the hearts on

those lifeboats

all the loved ones

watching their own

sink to their deaths

in freezing darkness

as they rowed on

I wonder if F. Scott

Fitzgerald started

at the end of Gatsby

and then went to the

beginning to start

again

so we beat on

boats against the current

borne back

ceaselessly into

the past

which is why I

began taking photos

of snippets of

lines in the exhibit

wondering what

poems might

emerge, turning the

grief back to joy