"all the nets we make between us"
Ms. Wisher wrote this poem for the 7th Safety Net Resiliency Initiative Community of Practice event on March 17, 2021. We encourage you to listen to the audio recording at the bottom of the page (scroll down).
1
there's no ocean in montgomery county
so aunt tab used to get
one of her friends who could drive
to take us & cousin des to atlantic city
where we could eat the day like cotton candy
seduce jellyfish out the water &
run laugh-screaming across the sand
there's no ocean in montgomery county
but our house on north wales road
could feel like a pirate ship
with no laws & little justice
our father wore an albatross around his neck
while our mother wore a crucifix
& only the sirens of the suburbs
knew a song that could lull the sea monster
of their sorrows back to sleep
there's no ocean in montgomery county
but you, little black girl poet
dream of writing poems on sails
you are shipwrecked & bound to land
that has never felt like yours
though your ancestors walked here
rode the train here
here where your black face
still provokes slurs & sympathy
where you often turn to salt
with sadness & shame
there's no ocean here
but there is an ocean of us, in us
a red sky friday we can't avoid
trade winds ubiquitous & punishing
an ocean full of hollers & hollow hells
that will take centuries to discover
a bottom our eyes will never evolve to see
langston said the world is a big sea
each of our traumas a jonah
the boats of our mothers' bodies
don't always hold all of us
the water of the world is brackish
& full of ghosts
2
there's no ocean in montgomery county
but i was born into an asbestos sea in ambler
on weekends when we escaped
our father's violent storms in north wales
the ambler house was a safer shore
where a pantheon of women
guarded our little girl minutes each day
though they never knew the dangers
coagulating in soil & water
the coral reefs of chrysotile
beneath grams' house
there's no ocean in montgomery county
but there was a bermuda triangle
between home & not-home
a gulf threatening & gaping
with family grudges & hazardous waste
& we were fish
our bodies full of water & sun
our bodies precious & precarious
tossed weekly in the wide-open hurt of the water
the fibers of our tenderness
rubbed away in jagged currents
making us slippery & hard to hold
we fell through cracks & broken windows
pain turned us into particles of sand
too many to catch
3
the net of antrea
one of the oldest fishing nets in the world
was found in finland in 1913
the same year my great-grandmother
christine johnson
was born in king george county, virginia
christine came to montgomery county at 16
the oldest & only girl in a family of singing boys
she could sing through her cooking
she could heal through her cooking
like the net of antrea
the net of christine
was made from the bark of willow trees
forests that date back thousands of years
like the net of antrea
the net of christine was lost
sunk fathoms deep beyond death
buried beneath the clay unheard
but unlike the net of antrea
the net of christine was never found
through radiocarbon testing or site excavation
was seldom documented in photographs
& never cataloged in museums among antiquities
the net of christine unraveled
in rose hill cemetery in 1985
& the ocean finally rose for my family
in montgomery county
sent us scattered far & away
some of us trapped in eddies of grief
some of us trapped in shallow pools of get-high
in the absence of her arms
we had to find other ways to hold ourselves together
to create tighter meshes of love between us
to tie knots in our spirit that won't come loose
there's no ocean in montgomery county
but there are nets of spruce root, wild grass,
hemp & hair, green flax, pawpaw, water reed
nets of latticed love, skintight sincerity
nets of bone & blood made from the
thin dust of first meetings & long-winded listening
nets that pull us in like lighthouses
nets that pull us together like starfish & oysters
our promises hidden but hardened to pearls
nets of norristown & north wales
nets of colmar & conshy
nets of pennlyn & perkasie
knots of mary & marvin
knots of amy & anthony
knots of miss susan & miss delores
of big sam & sister judith & mama yvonda
all our hairnets, our kitchenettes
our clarinets & bassinets
our planets & sonnets
there is no ocean in montgomery county
but you can pull in the horizon
like a school of violets
with all the nets we make between us