Underground Railroad

by Betsy Sholl

Underground Railroad,
Walking Tour, Portland, Maine

Deep water once where we stand.
Fog and a British brig from Savannah

where now the parking garage glows.
Then: ladder tacked to the wharf, dory below.

Come ashore, the captain would have strolled
among shops, till he found a conductor.

The sailors would have turned their backs,
so they could swear under oath they saw no men

row up, pull away, the fugitive shivering
among them.  No name, not one detail

about that man who by morning would be
booked to Halifax or St. John.

Silence now, where words must have passed
between them, gestures and warm clothes.

Silence among us too, as the talk ends,
as fog thickens its ghost ocean around us,

and a man looms up, startled to have come so close,
then stumbles off, his reek lingering.

Cement walk, guardrail, flickering harbor lights,
distance like mist seeping into our clothes, our hair.