Passage

When are we leaving, who’ll come
with us, how’ll we get to the ship?

My scrawl of a girl has me mithered
with questions. Whisht, I tell her,

we must gather nettles and dock,
then search for blackbirds’ eggs.

She’s quiet awhile till she whispers,
Ye were crying last night.

Please God she hasn’t heard talk
of the fever that haunts the ships.

She’s seen mothers cradle babies
to the graveyard, men bent double

with corpses tied to their backs.
I’ll lull her to sleep with tales

of soft feather beds in Quebec
and loaves of fresh-baked bread.

Her father will cross the ocean
to find us and he’ll see her blossom

like the whitethorn
that brightens our byroad today.