No fish, and slowly the people scatter
into the dark quadrants of the mainland,
broken, their mouths open -
the desperate thirst of them.
Houses flake paint over stones,
over gardens where rhubarb rots in the wild grass
among the iron grids and marigolds and boats
sinking into indiscriminate ground.
Lanes turn back into wilderness.
Shrews claim the undergrowth, the worms
and thorns, the fousty raspberries.

The ferry doubles its run across the expanse of bay.
Fishermen, ungentle and resigned,
families with fidgeting children, the adamant
formulas of sentimental legends, all shuffle aboard,
become nothing they ever considered
(as if any settlement were permanent).
In far off places, the talk is rife
with accounts of what was left there - nothing,
nothing.

Carol Hobbs

Great Harbour Deep appears in The Backyards of Heaven: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry from Ireland and Newfoundland & Labrador jointly published by the School of Humanities Publications, Waterford Institute of Technology, Centre for Newfoundland and Labrador Studies and Scop Productions Inc.

CAROL HOBBS is the Administrator for PoemWorks. Her writing has appeared in journals and anthologies in the United States, Canada, and Ireland. She was awarded a PEN New England Discovery Award 2004 for her poetry manuscript, New Found Laude.