Mrs Noah: Taken After the Flood
Jo Shapcott


I can't sit still these days. The ocean
is only memory, and my memory as fluttery
as a lost dove. Now the real sea beats
inside me, here, where I'd press fur and feathers
if I could. I'm middle-aged and plump.
Back on dry land I shouldn't think these things:
big paws which idly turn to bat the air,
my face by his ribs and the purr which ripples
through the boards of the afterdeck,
the roar — even at a distance — ringing in my bones,
the rough tongue, the claws, the little bites,
the crude taste of his mane. If  you touched my lips
with salt water I would tell you such words,
words to crack the sky and launch the ark again.