Michael Martone - Seeing Eye

The fireboats have come out to greet our return voyage, and the light is breaking up in the arching water of their cannons. The mist on the water smolders. The sun behind us chisels from the haze the row houses climbing Broadway. Everything is new or ancient. We can just see the piers crowded with people. The cranes and the gantries of the city’s construction could be the rigging of tall ships. I am getting too old for this. My archaic joints are ungreased wood, creaking like the frigate, her spars rattling in the headway she is making. But I unfold myself and stand into the wind. On the wind is the smell of Baltimore, the spices from the factories on Light Street that survive near the shopping malls, offices, and hotels. The spices mask the frightening stench of sluggish water, suggest the Orient, a new port opening to trade. The dried fruits and crushed leaves of another season preserve us all, home after a long passage, anoint our memories at the same time they come flooding back before us.

The author wishes to thank the editors of the following magazines and presses for their support and for their permission to reprint these stones here. “The Mayor of the Sister City Talks to the Chamber of Commerce in Klamath Falls, Oregon,” in Sundog . “Dish Night,” “Meat,” “What I See,” “The Teakwood Deck of the USS Indiana,” “Limited,” and “Highlights” in Indiana Review . “Lice” and “Fidel” in The Florida Review . “Three Tales of the Sister City” in Telescope . “Guam,” “Blue Hair,” and “Turning the Constellation” in Colorado Review . “The War That Never Ends” in High Plains literary Review . “Chatty Cathy Falls into the Wrong Hands” in The Laurel Review . “Evaporation” in Sycamore Review . “Miners” in Aura . “Elkhart, There, at the End of the World” in Indiana Writes . “On the Highway of Vice Presidents,” “On the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,” “On Anesthesia,” “On The Little Prince,” and “On Snipe Hunting” in Exquisite Corpse . “On Snipe Hunting” also appeared in Harper’s . “On the State of the Union,” “On Late-Night TV,” and “On Barbie” in Story . “On 911” and “On Quayleito” in The Iowa Review . “It’s Time” in The North American Review . “Seeing Eye” in The Arts Indiana Literary Supplement . “Outside Peru” in Epoch. “Pensées: The Thoughts of Dan Quayle” appeared as a chapbook published by Broad Ripple Press. “The Teakwood Deck of the USS Indiana,” “On the State of the Union,” “On Hoosier Hysteria,” “On Planet of the Apes,” and “Fidel” also appeared in different versions in Fort Wayne Is Seventh on Hitlers List , published by Indiana University Press. “It’s Time” was included in Voices Louder Than Words , edited by William Shore, published by Vintage Books. “Seeing Eye” was included in The Company of Dogs , edited by Michael J. Rosen, published by Doubleday.

The author also wishes to thank Michael Rosen, Susan Neville, Joseph Trimmer, Chris Leland and Osvaldo Sabino, Susan Dodd, Nancy Esposito, David Rivard and Michaela Sullivan, and, of course, Sallie Gouverneur.

And a generous grant for the completion of this book was provided by Theresa Pappas. “Diastema, we fit together.”