The Last Man Poem by Eleanor Wilner

for Vivian Schatz

Here, in our familiar streets, the day
is brisk with winter's business.
The reassuring rows of brick façades,
litter baskets overflowing
with the harvest of the streets
and, when the light turns, the people
move in unison, the cars miraculously
slide to a stop, no one is killed,
the streets, for some reason, do not
show the blood that is pouring
like a tide, on other shores.

Martinez, the last peasant left alive
in his village, refuses to run, hopes
that God, El Salvador,
will let him get the harvest in.
"Can a fish live out of water?" he says
for why he stays, and weeds
another row, ignoring the fins
of sharks that push up
through the furrows.

Here, it is said, we live
in the belly of the beast. Ahab sits
forever at the helm, his skin
white wax, an effigy. The whale carries
him, lashed to its side by the ropes
from his own harpoon. His eyes
are dead. His ivory leg
juts from the flank of Leviathan
like a useless tooth.

One more time, the distant sail appears,
a cloud forms, an old icon for mercy
turned up in a dusty corner
of the sky, preparing rain
for the parched land, Rachel
weeping for her children. "Can a fish
live out of water?" he asks
and the rain answers, in Spanish,
manitas de plata
little hands of silver on his brow.