El Faro

by Thomas Moore

When did you graduate? is the usual
question. Oh, you taught there. What

did you teach? It happens at Hannaford.
It happens at Renys. On the waterfront.

My Maine Maritime jacket sparks
the conversations. My son’s in the Gulf.

He’s mate on a supply vessel. Makes trips
out to the rig in all sorts of dirty weather.

Or, I studied business logistics. Work
for McCrum right here in Belfast. My

courses were art history and writing —
alien worlds to most Academy students.

But they liked Frost’s “‘Out, out . . . ’”
because they’d cut years of cordwood

and Wormser’s “January” where the man
pokes his finger into the truck’s frozen

carburetor. In the Bob’s Red Mill aisle
at Renys a woman tells me her son has

sailed for ten years. I ask if he’s deck or
engine. Engine, she says. Learned to weld

at the Academy and now he’s making a sculpture
for the El Faro crew. He knew a lot of them.

Hasn’t shown it to anyone yet. She winces,
her face seeming to draw upward under her

knitted wool cap. She insists we exchange
names. I’ll ask him if he remembers you.