from “outgoing tide—”

it has the depth of human error

I say this to myself about my face

& it’s true—low & intense first

winter light                 frost

softened sky colors & your deep ear

the oars glitter         the water spires

high tide made a small

margin              a salt whisker late

autumnal excess or clutter under

foot      the salt dark comes late north


*
 

it has the depth of human error

manic pixie soccer mom

in the bleak midwinter—

hard wrackline of a year’s ebb

the tide inevitable & circumflex

a skiff of snow in the new week

the wave closes over

your point of entry

the ten a.m. bells ring six

minutes late—very gently struck—


*
 

it has the depth of human error

lowtide shipwreck greenribs

every dog likes dead things

that’s how you learn the notes on a treble clef

at five p.m. on the last day in ordinary tide

wind motion visible in sea smoke

a tidal island has

atlantic grammar

I obliterate myself with small tasks

now that I have been inland a while

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“This poem grew out of the phrase ‘the depth of human error,’ which emerged from a conversation with my fourteen-year-old son about music. We were driving, listening to the radio, and discussing a song he really liked, which I did not—because it was too perfect; it left no room for error. In the poem, I was thinking about the mistakes that make things interesting. The landscape of the poem is that of midcoast Maine, with its dramatic tides.”
—Pattie McCarthy