Us in the chill of lakewater, searching an August weekend
for a ship lost in 1905 to the shoreline of a city developed
by beer and cheese nuggets fried under oil that swells like
Lake Michigan in the morning. Our hunger looks for a sign—
a broken board, a petrified anchor line, a message in a frosted
bottle. But there is only silence and you, air-tanked and plunged
deep under the surface like a needle, breathing measured gas
while you brush moss-sand off the piece of old wood I pointed
out from 20 feet above at the surface. For days after you reach me
and we haul our equipment from the pebbled beach, we’ll
tell our families how we found it: our lone board the first clue
in a cold case. Next year, when it’s warmer, we’ll keep looking.
Jenna Mather studied English and creative writing at the University of Iowa. Her work has been published in wildscape, Discretionary Love, boats against the current, and more. On any given day, you can find her in a coffee shop—or online here and here.
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