Matinicus

The rocks thrust fingers, point you home.
Go, they warn, before the mail boat leaves.
This place turns jail and the seas are mean,
wardens of those who do not flee.

Go, they warn, before the mail boat leaves.
This place is sharp with salt and death,
wardens of those who do not flee
this isle, a far out fringe of Penobscot Bay.

This place is sharp with salt and death.
Matinicus, a most inhospitable host.
This isle, a far out fringe of Penobscot Bay,
will hold you here or throw you to the sea.

Matinicus, a most inhospitable host!
This place turns jail and the seas are mean.
Will you be held or thrown to the sea?
The rocks thrust fingers, point you home.

***

Audrey Friedman is a retired Rhode Island educator. She earned her MFA in Poetry from Vermont College in ‘05. Many of Audrey’s poems appear in literary journals including the Comstock Review, California Quarterly, and the Newport Review. She now teaches creative writing to adults and serves as a contributing editor to Hunger Mountain even while she is traveling the world.