by Jennifer Davis Michael<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those images that yet I\u2019m walking this Carolina beach Jennifer Davis Michael is a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, with a focus on British Romanticism and especially Wiliam Blake. Her poem \u201cForty Trochees\u201d was selected by Rachel Hadas for the Frost Farm Prize in Metrical Poetry (2020). She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Let Me Let Go<\/em> and Dubious Breath<\/em>, as well as a critical monograph, Blake and the City.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Jennifer Davis Michael Those images that yetFresh images beget,That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.–Yeats, \u201cByzantium\u201d I\u2019m walking this Carolina beachso different from the Gulf ones I know well –wide, level, brown sand here,lank-ribbed like the Ancient Mariner,weird holes bubbling on its surface. No trace here of the uncounted slavesquarantined in this port, heldin the hulls of skeleton ships,discharged into further blood and mire. A tall young woman flows toward mein a dress too refined for the beach,breathless: \u201cDid you see the dolphin?!\u201dI follow her pointing finger, shake my head. Still, I squint at the dazzling water.She turns back, points again. \u201cThere it is!Do you see it?\u201d I spot what might bea flash of smooth flesh above the surface,or maybe just sunlight on rippling waves. But I say Yes to the exchangeof wonder. An imageonly real if shared. The tearingof my eyes from the wormholes,the dancing floor below my feet,and everything that lies below the sand. Jennifer Davis Michael is a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, with a focus on British Romanticism and especially Wiliam Blake. Her poem \u201cForty Trochees\u201d was selected by Rachel Hadas for the Frost Farm Prize in Metrical Poetry (2020). She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Let Me Let Go and Dubious Breath, as well as a critical monograph, Blake and the City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-18-2025"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.<\/em>
–Yeats, \u201cByzantium\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
so different from the Gulf ones I know well
–wide, level, brown sand here,
lank-ribbed like the Ancient Mariner,
weird holes bubbling on its surface.
No trace here of the uncounted slaves
quarantined in this port, held
in the hulls of skeleton ships,
discharged into further blood and mire.
A tall young woman flows toward me
in a dress too refined for the beach,
breathless: \u201cDid you see the dolphin?!\u201d
I follow her pointing finger, shake my head.
Still, I squint at the dazzling water.
She turns back, points again. \u201cThere it is!
Do you see it?\u201d I spot what might be
a flash of smooth flesh above the surface,
or maybe just sunlight on rippling waves.
But I say Yes<\/em> to the exchange
of wonder. An image
only real if shared. The tearing
of my eyes from the wormholes,
the dancing floor below my feet,
and everything that lies below the sand.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n