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
Common Threads 