Atlantis

Poems by

Mark Doty

• Publisher: Harper
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780060951061
• eBook ISBN: 9780061967863
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

Atlantis

1. FAITH

“I’ve been having these

awful dreams, each a little different,

though the core’s the same—

we’re walking in a field,

Wally and Arden and I, a stretch of grass

with a highway running beside it,

or a path in the woods that opens

onto a road. Everything’s fine,

then the dog sprints ahead of us,

excited; we’re calling but

he’s racing down a scent and doesn’t hear us,

and that’s when he goes

onto the highway. I don’t want to describe it.

Sometimes it’s brutal and over,

and others he’s struck and takes off

so we don’t know where he is

or how bad. This wakes me

every night now, and I stay awake;

I’m afraid if I sleep I’ll go back

into the dream. It’s been six months,

almost exactly, since the doctor wrote

not even a real word

but an acronym, a vacant

four-letter cipher

that draws meanings into itself,

reconstitutes the world.

We tried to say it was just

a word; we tried to admit

it had power and thus to nullify it

by means of our acknowledgement.

I know the current wisdom:

bright hope, the power of wishing you’re well.

He’s just so tired, though nothing

shows in any tests, Nothing,

the doctor says, detectable;

the doctor doesn’t hear what I do,

that trickling, steadily rising nothing

that makes him sleep all day,

vanish into fever’s tranced afternoons,

and I swear sometimes

when I put my head to his chest

I can hear the virus humming

like a refrigerator.

Which is what makes me think

you can take your positive attitude

and go straight to hell.

We don’t have a future,

we have a dog.

Who is he?

Soul without speech,

sheer, tireless faith,

he is that-which-goes-forward,

black muzzle, black paws

scouting what’s ahead;

he is where we’ll be hit first,

he’s the part of us

that’s going to get it.

I’m hardly awake on our morning walk

—always just me and Arden now—

and sometimes I am still

in the thrall of the dream,

which is why, when he took a step onto Commercial

before I’d looked both ways,

I screamed his name and grabbed his collar.

And there I was on my knees,

both arms around his neck

and nothing coming,

and when I looked into that bewildered face

I realized I didn’t know what it was

I was shouting at,

I didn’t know who I was trying to protect.”

2. REPRIEVE

I woke in the night

and thought, It was a dream,

nothing has torn the future apart,

we have not lived years

in dread, it never happened,

I dreamed it all. And then

there was this sensation of terrific pressure

lifting, as if I were rising

in one of those old diving bells,

lightening, unburdening. I didn’t know

how heavy my life had become—so much fear,

so little...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Description
• Four Cut Sunflowers, One Upside Down
• A Green Crab’s Shell
• Rope
• A Display of Mackerel
• Couture
• Grosse Fuge
• At the Boatyard
• A Letter from the Coast
• To the Storm God
• In the Community Garden
• Breakwater
• Long Point Light
• Atlantis
• Two Cities
• Tunnel Music
• Crêpe de Chine
• Migratory
• Homo Will Not Inherit
• Fog Argument
• Wreck
• Two Ruined Boats
• March
• Nocturne in Black and Gold
• Aubade
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Other Books by Mark Doty
• Copyright
• About the Publisher