by Christine Sikorski
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| Cartoon by Gary A Huck |
for all victims of recent U.S. boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific
The ghosts of the fishermen and their living wives file in, filling every seat.
The judge, old uncle of a murdered man, enters, pulling on a red jacket.
The prosecutor, a murdered man’s wife, calls the roll of the 234, the order
in which they will testify, the order in which they died.
The ghosts tell what fell from the skies, each blood-thirsty, exploding surprise,
tell, too, of their cries for help, answered by more fire. Evidence is presented:
bomb fragments, charred boards, limbs skimmed from the sea. Hours pass.
Lunch is served in the corridors. Night comes. Blankets are spread on the floor.
One afternoon, two weeks in, the children enter, hand in hand, take turns
stepping into the witness box to describe crying mothers, cramping stomachs,
empty places their fathers used to be. No one sits beside the defendant and,
because this is a nightmare, no one permits him to speak.
On the last day, a jury of grandmothers finds him guilty. The judge sentences him
to a solitary life at sea, fishing, his catch to be surrendered daily. The ghosts
are permitted to toss bombs at him periodically and may almost let him drown.
But they must haul him up again, place the net back in his hands, this killer
who is so confused about what it means to be a man.
Christine Sikorski’s work has appeared in The New Verse News, coastlines review, Waterstone, Little Patuxent Review, Quartet, One Art, This Was 2020: Minnesotans Write About Pandemics and Social Justice in a Historic Year, and elsewhere. Her honors include a Minnesota State Arts Board Grant and Academy of American Poets Prizes. She has taught at two universities, the Loft Literary Center, a homeless shelter, a community center, and other venues. She lives with her family in Minneapolis.