Miocene Age Shark Tooth Hunt
Some heart-shaped, some like the letter Y, edges still sharp after five million years — the girl has already found three teeth this morning. I’ve found none. The tide forces us closer to Calvert Cliffs. Our fingers comb the narrowing beach, hunting. We’re running out of space and time.
Back home, you’ll attack me with your questions. You already know all the answers. You can’t bear to hear anything I say.
I need to find a talisman — a predator’s tooth, something dangerous — since nothing before has protected me.
The girl tells me — Sometimes I want a prehistoric shark tooth so much & I look & I look & there aren’t any. But if I stop looking, then suddenly I see one.
How did it happen?
That I am no longer a child?
Peugeot 403 Driving Lesson. Pentagon Parking Lot, 1965
In this ocean of space where I can make mistakes, my father sits beside me, not at the piano, but in the car.
I pump the gas, engage the clutch, the gears grind, & the car stalls. Da capo, says my father — Gently.
No staccato on any pedals. Think of the Chickering’s 3 — how they require a delicate touch. But today
I’m heavy footed, panic, slam to a stop. My mouth crunches into the horn in the steering wheel’s center.
Front tooth cracks. Loud honk. My father wipes my bloody face with his handkerchief. Does it hurt much?
Do you feel okay? He helps me to the passenger seat, one arm holds me up, his hand cradles my head.
Let’s get you home. I think that’s enough for today. Don’t worry — we’ll come back next weekend.
You’re going to be a great driver. Dad crushes his Camel in the ashtray, rests his arm on the open window frame,
looks over his shoulder, reverses away from my sudden stop. Didn’t he remind me? — Alwayss.
Check the rear-view mirror. On the drive home, puddles reflect mercury vapor lamps.
The Peugeot shimmers in the lights’ shadows. Vibrato. My father says — Those uprights.
They make me think of pianos, remind me of jetties, how they mirror the Atlantic. Remember last summer?
Gigantic splinters channeling currents. That rusted wreck beyond the breakwater.
Tidal pool ribbons. Waves crashing in patterns of 8ths against the sand. Over & over again,
they lifted that stinking sting ray, then resettled it. Can’t you just hear Bach’s Inventions, his fugues
for 2, even 3, voices, everywhere? Am I recalling Bach’s Inventions, or my father’s, or is this my very own?
(My father standing at the shoreline, staring back to Europe.) He turns on the radio — Can you tell this piece’s time signature?
Isn’t all this still difficult for me? Figuring out — what is past? present? How to tread lightly.
No, here’s my own invention — in every parking lot, every steering column. Whenever I smell cigarette smoke,
overuse the damper pedal, see my replacement tooth in mirrors, reflections in tidal pools, forget to brake,
drive with my arm out the window. Always in the rear-view mirror, or just in front of me —
the Atlantic. On the way home that day, his handkerchief pressed against my mouth,
didn’t my father accelerate, shift gears, legato? Don’t I also tap the wheel to any radio’s music?
Air ribbons around my skin, wind buffets my splintered tooth. Da capo —
Safeway Parking Lot at Night
Grocery shopping you said. But that was 3 hours ago. Where are you? Did something happen to you?
Our dog searches the house, limps through the yard. Misses you.
I open the Corona’s door, plant the dog’s front paws on the back seat, lever his stiff hips & hind legs into the car. Drive to the Safeway.
We park in the middle of the lot. Don’t see your Land Cruiser. My phone’s in my lap. Maybe you’ll call? Appear on my screen saver? In the photo of our wedding? Or is this like those other times you’ve disappeared?
Bugs loop. Dart. Metallic rainbows beat against fluorescent lights.
Through the moon roof, I spy an eastern screech owl — her talons grip the lamp post. Large eyes track everything that moves. Soon she’ll hunt, pounce. She haunts this night.
One woman glares at a Mercury idling in the handicapped space. Her hair fizzes madder-root red. She slams her cart into the Please-Pickup-and-Return shelter, ricochets toward our car. Eyeballs me, our dog stretched on the back seat. I light another cigarette, lower the window. Blow smoke at that woman.
Don’t you remember how we came together — fusions in a nuclear accelerator.
Now that our old dog sleeps almost all the time. How could you leave.
Katherine Gekker is the author of In Search of Warm Breathing Things (Glass Lyre Press). Her poems have been published in numerous journals, including Calyx and Poetry South. She serves as Assistant Poetry Editor for Delmarva Review. Two collections of Gekker’s poems have been set to music by composers Eric Ewazen and Carson Cooman.