Watson's in Washington, wandering 
the National Gallery, eyeing the art,
eyeing the cops rocking on their heels
in doorways.  He's not fooled.
Their nonchalant eyes are actually peeled.
Their profile of trouble looks like a poster
of Watson: tousled hair, inexplicable grin, 
obvious inability to concentrate 
or appreciate the priceless pictures.
Perhaps an axe would excite them,
or a can of candy-apple-red spray paint 
in each hand.
Telling himself  Behave, 
a nonchalant Watson ambles up to the big oil,
giving it a good look, stroking his chin
for the wary dick in the doorway.
The big oil is a shark attack,
a rowboat full of men trying to rescue
this lad in big trouble in the water.
everything is a circle, happening at once.
On the bow of the boat a sailor--
looking heroic with his windswept hair
and harpoon--is about to stick the shark.
The shark's got his huge mouth open
to swallow the swimmer.  The swimmer 
has lost a leg and looks properly shocked.
floundering on his back and reaching
toward heaven.  He's just missed the lifeline
tossed to him and he's just out of reach
of two sailors leaning over the green sea
to grab him.  The next moment will tell 
who gets what and ain't it perfect
we'll never get to the next moment.  Not bad,
Watson murmurs, bending to see who 
had such an eye for imminent disaster:

        John Singleton Copley
    Watson and the Shark, 1778

Watson does a double-take and reads on:

   Watson and the Shark, 1778

A boy attacked by a shark and rescued 
by some seamen in  a boat; founded on a fact
which happened in the harbour of Havannah.

Ah what luck!  A famous ancestor, here
on the wall under the lights and eyes
of those ready cops.  Watson looks back
into Watson's shocked and staring eye,
into the worried eyes of the sailors,
into the gold glassy eye of the shark.
He knows them all so well.  They circle him
at night in his dreams.  a beaming Watson
turns to the great silent room to see
who played this trick, or who he might show
himself to.  Look, look, look he'd say
Founded on fact!  Rescue from doom!
Oh, he'd tell them all his trouble,
all the teeth he'd felt and felt
slip by, all the hands that missed him,
all the hands that dragged him in--
sputtering, bleeding, weak--from the sea.
Yes, he'd tell them his whole sad story
happily.  He'd let it out.  Only just then
there was nobody.  Not a soul.  No tourists
gawking, no art students sketching,
not even a bored watchman in blue.
It was all Watson and only Watson,
and no hope anywhere for rescue.

Michael Pettit
College English, March, 1990
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 

HOME