Sunday Poetry with Domenica Martinello
Today on Sunday Poetry we have Domenica Martinello on the biblical inspiration behind “Miraculous Catch” from her debut collection, All Day I Dream About Sirens.
MIRACULOUS CATCH
maid of many bloods
& a cut through the middle
of me, half underscore
half sardine
skyline of two
hues clamping shut
-
all deceit
cannot be entered
cannot be entered
girded against
net and fishhook
loins of the mind
gaping quietly
a slow suggestive ‘o’
-
composite of spring
matter, meat and stones
attached by two fleshes
soul skewered to an arrow
stay deep stay low
dark little baskets
darting in the shallows
multiply, starving
my soul too
thin to be collected
under the high gallery
& stained glass
of voiceful
wetness
-
men of many men
ready to accept
their new vocation
new ultimate tongue
grow their hair long
& useful
casting lines, weaving
creels from their beards
thinking the shoreline
is their shoreline, singular
sure the skyline
will crack open
like a walnut
if they will it
they will not get
their sandals wet
thinking they alone
can walk
that salty crease
*
“Miraculous Catch” is named after the bible story “The Miraculous Catch of Fish” in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 5:1–11). In the story, fishermen on the Sea of Galilee are having tough luck until Jesus shows up. He tells them to let down their nets and they are rewarded with a great catch. The speaker of my poem, observing these men-turned-disciples, is truly something miraculous: a “maid of many bloods,” a mermaid.
My initiation into the world of myth, metaphor, and symbolism was through Christianity. I attended a Catholic elementary and middle school and felt creatively invigorated by all my religion classes. The apostles seemed like one big awesome friend group, complete with fluctuating loyalties, dramas, and disagreements. Someone like Saint Veronica, risking it all to wipe Jesus’s bloody face with her veil, resonated with me. She was a badass rebel! It made sense, in myth logic, that she’d be rewarded with a magical cloth that could cure blindness and raise the dead. Though instead of magic (heathen!), I was taught to say miracle (holy).
My interest in Christian myth was pure and un-academic and tinged with the eccentricities and superstitions of my Italian family. It’s only natural that Christian symbols and stories began mingling with the other mythological explorations in my writing.
I let myself have fun transposing the mermaids that already lived and frolicked in All Day I Dream about Sirens into these stories: what if the miracle of Jesus walking on water was a trick of a devoted mermaid, guiding his feet beneath the waves? What if Mary Magdalene, Christianity’s OG siren, was a mermaid? Would that explain all the multiplying fish and watery baptisms and fish bumper stickers on the back of mini-vans? In my imagination, yes.
*
Domenica Martinello holds an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was the recipient of the Deena Davidson Friedman Prize for Poetry.