At last she said, “You will miss your plane, Nelson Spurlock.”
“I will?” he said.
“Unless you let me take you, and we hurry.”
“It’s Sonny.”
“So it seems, for once,” she said, and smiled her downturned smile.
“No,” he said, laughing, “my name. You should call me Sonny. Everyone else does.”
“Well,” she said, “it’s settled. I promise. I’ll call you Sonny.”
“And I promise I won’t call you Clementine.”
“Why not call me Miriam? No one else does.”
“Miriam, then,” he said, and this time it was Spurlock who extended his hand and Miriam who took it between both palms.
“Sonny,” she said. “Enchantée.”
* * *
—
Were you there, had you taken as I had the form of a crow in the crown of a yew tree—a crow hunched and inkily unkempt, hoarse from its dark, disconsolate colloquy—you would remark how they walk without haste, side by side, down the cinder path toward the sunrise and the eastern gate: my daughter, Miriam Oppen, and her kind companion, his head inclined toward her to listen.
For Laura
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Bill Clegg, for your imagination, encouragement, and faith.
Chris Clemans, Simon Toop, Jillian Buckley, Marion Duvert, Drew Zagami, David Kambhu, and Kirsten Wolf, for your exemplary competence, seriousness, goodwill, and good cheer.
Kate Medina, for your trust and confidence and vision.
Anna Pitoniak, for your patience, precision, friendship, diplomacy, and incisive husbanding of the manuscript.
Erica Gonzalez, Derrill Hagood, Steve Messina, Robin Duchnowski, Joe Perez, Laura Klynstra, Susan Turner, Avideh Bashirrad, Andrea DeWerd, Sharon Propson, and Alena Jones, for steering the book with sure and light touch through each stage of its progress.
Families Baudot, Harrison, Gillies-Lattman, Jennings, and Rogers, for your love and support.
Ethan, Hugh, Thomas, and Phoebe, for choosing me to be your father.
Laura, for the world.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DESALES HARRISON is an associate professor of modern poetry and acting director of the Creative Writing Program at Oberlin College. He earned his BA from Yale University, his MA from Johns Hopkins University, and his PhD from Harvard University. He studied psychoanalysis at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research in New York. He is married to the literary critic Laura Baudot, has four children, and spends part of the year near Nevers, France.
Twitter: @anotherdonkey
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The Waters & the Wild Page 30