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67°28S 61°41E

 

Wake to the glow of landing lights arranged in an A-OK— Air-

traffic ghosts pioneering a runway site for faith— Our savior

touching down at the helm of a 787—

 

You’re going to be fine, you say. You’re translucent already.

 

An accidental harpoon-swing— The quick drop of the sun— An

unattached wind at just the wrong moment—

 

Nobody is to blame for these things. Your gauze, you keep on

saying, looks as healthy as sickness gets.

 

I can see it now: we’ll march down the runway stairs and scoop up

armfuls of soil, spread it on our bones.

 

I told you once that God meant for us to connect the dots.

 

I take it back. My innermost organs are praying for collapse, bright

and heavy, to deliver them.




Dennis Sweeney

levelheaded: 67°28′S 61°41′E

 

Following the coordinates 67°28′S 61°41′E places us on the edge of Antarctica, where the icy continent meets the Southern Ocean. The brutal conditions of the geographical setting steep the poem in conflict before its first line. We’ve got man/woman vs. nature here, and we already know that nature is especially tough in these parts.

 

Beyond placing us geographically, the numbers in the poem’s title also give us something scientific to hold onto. Our speaker is an outdoors person. We imagine that the guy with icicles in his beard or the woman ice picking up the side of a glacier isn’t especially saccharine. For this reason, we’re set up to believe that when emotions do enter the poem, they won’t be exaggerated.

 

True to form, Sweeney’s speaker presents a horrific scene with nearly absurd understatement. When “An accidental harpoon-swing” threatens the speaker’s life, his or her fellow explorer posits: “You’re going to be fine (…) You’re translucent already.” Whereas a perfectly adjusted human being in the speaker’s predicament might think “Ahhhh! What the fuck!? How the fuck did I get stabbed by a fucking harpoon?!?! Ahhhhhhh!!!!” the poem’s speaker says, “Nobody is to blame for these things.”

 

Sadly, the speaker’s reaction isn’t foolish because, well, he or she is right. Accidents happen. Terrible ones. The chaos collides: “harpoon swing— The quick drop of the sun— An / unattached wind at just the wrong moment” and we find ourselves near death—or near what might feel like death—in need of a “savior.”

 

In our moments of vulnerability, it’s fun to imagine the elation we’d feel if we were to be saved. As people who have felt pain—be it physical or emotional—we can identify with a speaker who is hurt, one who is out in the cold in the middle of nowhere. Along with him or her, we can imagine how joyous it would feel to be whisked off the ice block and “scoop up / armfuls of soil, spread it on our bones.” For some of us, in our darkest times, we might even be able to empathize with how a “collapse” could feel like a snow bright deliverance.

 

 

– The Editors