In loving memory of my grandmother,
Hilda Marie Merrimen.
CONTENTS
I. Construction
The Lost Worker
Harland and Wolff
The Hats
The Riveting Squad:
The Heater Boys
The Catch Boys
The Holder-Ons
The Riveters
Goose Bumps
A Giant Elm Tree
Belfast, May 31, 1911
The Clothesline
II. Maiden Voyage
Jenny the Cat
Her Passengers
Selected Provisions
Captain Smith’s Beard
The Swimming Pool
The Fourth Smokestack
The Distance Pool
The Impending Dog Show
A Young Boy’s Spinning Top
III. Impact
Impact
The Prognosis
The Barber
The Boy in Lifeboat No. 14
The Wishing Well
Edith Evans
The Piano Player
Epiphany
Steward Johnston
Someone’s Lucky Penny
IV. Voices
Second Officer Charles Lightoller
Stewardess Violet Jessop
Lawrence Beesley
Eva Hart
Colonel Archibald Gracie IV
V. Impact
Carpathia
First Memorial
Rosa Abbott
The Young Widow
The Carver
New York
Group Photograph, Southampton
The Cable-Ship Mackay-Bennett
Ten Minutes Fast
The Embalmer’s Daughter
Safekeeping
Thomson Beattie
The Balance
The Rolling Pin
The Sound of Drowning
J. Bruce Ismay
VI. Discovery
The Debris Field
Eight Inches Apart
Fairview Cemetery, Halifax, Nova Scotia
The Last Survivor
Note on the Text, Thank yous
I. Construction
THE LOST WORKER
Whether the rumours resulted from the faint clangs,
or the faint clangs resulted from the rumours,
even the oldest believed the possibility
of a lost worker could only be an omen.
No matter their sense of wonder,
the pending deadlines, or their hurried pace,
in the back of some workers’ minds
their rivets sealed more than just the hull.
At home they hugged their children,
kissed their wives
or dreamed of families
they had yet to realize.
In the back of some workers’ minds
their rivets sealed more than just the hull.
* * *
HARLAND AND WOLFF
At six-twenty each morning
workers would congregate
by the green gates, often arriving early
to avoid the crush of thousands
for the sooner they reached
their work stations,
the sooner they started
to earn a wage.
Those arriving late
were literally locked out
and would lose a whole day’s pay
not to mention the funds spent
holed up at the public house
avoiding home.
* * *
THE HATS
Most workers wore duncher caps
save for the foremen
who wore bowlers
and The Hats
who’d enter the main office
in top hats black
as a stoker’s coal-covered face.
* * *
THE RIVETING SQUAD—THE HEATER BOYS
They could tell a rivet’s temperature
by its colour
and once it reached 650 degrees
it seemed as if they channelled Hephaestus,
the Greek god of fire,
for when they extracted rivets
with their tongs,
it looked like they were throwing
miniature lightning bolts
to the Catch Boys.
* * *
THE RIVETING SQUAD—THE CATCH BOYS
Often as young as thirteen or fourteen,
they’d catch the rivet
in a tin, grab the scorching metal
with their tongs
and then, as if passing a baton
in a relay, run full-tilt
to the Holder-Ons.
* * *
THE RIVETING SQUAD—THE HOLDER-ONS
They’d help place the rivet
in the desired hole
and secure it with little more
than determination
and a fourteen-pound hammer
for the Riveters.
* * *
THE RIVETING SQUAD—THE RIVETERS
They needed to wear scarves
around their necks
all year long, no matter the weather,
to stop bits of rivet ember
from getting down their shirts,
burning through their skin.
They’d stand on opposite sides,
clang – clang clang – clang clang – clang
to shape everything into place.
* * *
GOOSE BUMPS
It took three million rivets
to piece the ship together
though only a few seconds
for a small child to notice
it was as if the ship
had a surprise chill
for it seemed her hull
was covered in goose bumps.
* * *
A GIANT ELM TREE
Perhaps it was simply
the colour
of her copper propellers
that drew comparisons
to giant elm trees,
a tip of the hat
to the earthy hue
amongst all that grey.
Or perhaps it was a desire
to connect with nature
in some way,
an organic cousin
when the politics
of scale veered
so far into the realm
of manmade.
* * *
BELFAST, MAY 31, 1911
Twenty-two tons of train oil, tallow and soap,
and a father as he explains to his son
the art of friction—
it’s like when your hand got stuck
in grandma’s vase and your mother rubbed
butter around your wrist,
how you slid free
as easily as the Titanic slid in.
* * *
THE CLOTHESLINE
One woman grew accustomed
to seeing the great ship
whenever she unpinned her laundry.
Sometimes it was an apron
or one of her husband’s shirts,
clothing large enough
that when removed
it framed a portrait
of the Titanic in the distance.
On laundry day after the launch,
she kept squinting
in hopes her eyes had failed her,
the familiar view now missing,
as if a sleeping giant woke up
and walked away.
II. Maiden Voyage
JENNY THE CAT
Jenny delivered her kittens
in the weeks that preceded the maiden voyage.
As if she could sense the impending disaster,
s
he carried her kittens by the neck,
one by one, down the gangplank
to the quay at Southampton
and in those moments convinced
one of the stokers to accept employment
somewhere else, for even though
his impending two-week contract paid well,
he learned long ago to always trust
a mother’s instincts.
* * *
HER PASSENGERS
American,
Australian,
Austro-Hungarian,
Belgian,
British,
Bulgarian,
Canadian,
Chinese,
Danish,
Dutch,
Finnish,
French,
German,
Greek,
Italian,
Irish,
Japanese,
Mexican,
Norwegian,
Portugese,
Russian,
South African,
Spanish,
Swedish,
Swiss,
Syrian,
Turkish,
Uruguayan.
* * *
SELECTED PROVISIONS
Fruits
36,000 oranges
36,000 apples
16,000 lemons
13,000 grapefruits
1,000 lbs grapes
Vegetables
40 tons potatoes
7,000 heads of lettuce
3,500 onions
2,250 lbs fresh green peas
800 bundles asparagus
Meats
75,000 lbs beef
25,000 lbs poultry and game
11,000 lbs fresh fish
7,500 lbs bacon and ham
2,500 lbs sausages
Baking
40,000 eggs
10,000 lbs sugar
6,000 lbs butter
1,500 g fresh milk
250 barrels flour
Tobacco
8,000 cigars
* * *
CAPTAIN SMITH’S BEARD
For many passengers,
his well-groomed appearance
solidified their trust,
as if his shaving precision
somehow reflected
his seamanship.
Young crewmen coveted his beard
as if it were an achievement
like the four stripes
that adorned his sleeves
and epaulettes.
They dreamed of the day
their follicles could be let loose,
a well-maintained field
in a life so full of ocean.
Sometimes he’d recognize himself
as a proud husband and father,
a veteran of the Boer War,
The White Star Line’s esteemed
and decorated Captain,
while other times it seemed
the young boy who left
for a career at sea
stared back from behind
his white mask.
* * *
THE SWIMMING POOL
Though most would not need to,
some high-society ladies practiced
their strokes each morning
while servants stood poolside
with long white towels, thick
bathrobes with monogrammed pockets.
One third-class passenger figured
the twenty-five cents admission
an investment, a story he could tell for drinks—
the one about how he swam aboard the Titanic,
dove six feet under to the bottom,
and stared up at the world’s richest women
as their coloured bathing caps
kept their hair dry and smiles intact.
* * *
THE FOURTH SMOKESTACK
Most admirers had no clue
its epic verticality had little purpose
other than aesthetic.
In postcards and posters,
artists depicted huge plumes,
though the only smoke
came from First Class
in the smoking room
for which it served as ventilation.
* * *
THE DISTANCE POOL
As if the ship were a newborn
bet on by loved ones
trying to guess her weight,
passengers placed bets
on distance travelled,
and at noon each day
they’d congregate,
wait for the purser
to announce
just how far they had gone
and who among them
won the jackpot.
* * *
THE IMPENDING DOG SHOW
Harry Anderson’s fifty-dollar Chow
Robert W Daniel’s champion French Bulldog,
Gamon de Pycombe
John Jacob Astor’s Airedale, Kitty
Helen Bishop’s Frou Frou
Miss Margaret Hays’ Pomeranian
Elizabeth Rothschild’s Pomeranian
William Ernest Carter’s King Charles Spaniel
Henry Sleeper Harper’s Pekingese, Sun Yat Sen
* * *
A YOUNG BOY'S SPINNING TOP
In this picture, a young boy stands transfixed
at the magic of a spinning top.
It doesn’t matter that he walks
on the deck of the world’s largest ship
or that it’s a maiden voyage
and everything is imbued with celebration,
for he’s full of wonder and intrigued
at the constant spinning and spinning
as if his joy could be never-ending,
the ship’s fate undetermined.
III. Impact
IMPACT
One passenger believed it was her husband,
the ship’s jolt just another expression of their love.
Others thought it was an earthquake
or a mishap in the galley—
a runaway trolley, a stack of fallen dishes.
The baker wasn’t sure what happened
though he hoped his loaves would not fall.
While airtight after airtight compartment filled,
a second-class passenger ordered his drink
with chunks from the berg.
A small child sucked pieces of ice
as if they were candies,
and her brothers scraped up snowballs,
their mother worried only
they could lose an eye.
* * *
THE PROGNOSIS
After Thomas Andrews returned to the bridge
from examining the damage below,
he realized how a doctor must feel
when delivering a negative prognosis.
While Captain Smith expected the ailment
to only be minor, a strain or sprain,
Andrews worked hard for the words
to explain their condition,
how they should all find ways
to get their personal affairs in order.
* * *
THE BARBER
Up until now, his only worries were
rough seas and dull scissors,
but with each launched lifeboat he gained
perspective and a newfound clarity—
the piles of hair, the polite conversations
where he’d nod yes even when he meant no,
a life’s worth of postcard sales, miniature lifesavers,
and the pennants that hung from the ceiling.
He considered how early barbers worked
as dentists and bloodletters—
the spinning pole outside his shop
symbolizing blue blood to the heart,
red blood to the body.
Most customers thought it was a giant candy
like the peppermints
he gave to young boys on the
ir first cut.
He wondered whether he should apologize
for all the missing hairs
for he knew the men would need them,
every last one.
* * *
THE BOY IN LIFEBOAT NO. 14
Although the boy had yet to hear
his own voice change or find himself
needing to shave a scruffy face,
Second Officer Lightoller still threatened
to blow the boy’s brains out
unless he left the lifeboat
and returned to the sinking ship.
The women pleaded he was only a boy,
that there was room enough
for all of them, but as the lifeboat rocked
like a giant cradle in the wind,
Lightoller maintained a strict adherence
to women and children first.
One little girl wondered if jumping
from boat to boat was a game
only boys could play and, if so,
why did he seem upset?
As the older men stood back
with cigars, enjoyed the last
few swigs from favourite flasks,
the boy sat inside a coil of rope,
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