ADDENDUM TO THE SAFETY OFFICER’S ACCOUNT<\/p>\n
.<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0When the spanwire The Shore Patrol had fished him out of bars, <\/p>\n “Addendum to the Safety Officer’s Account” is reprinted from Crush Depth <\/em>(Truman State University Press, 2009) and The New Republic.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Michael Spence<\/a> has driven public-transit buses in the Seattle area full-time for twenty-eight years.\u00a0 His poems have appeared recently in The Gettysburg Review, The Hudson Review, The Sewanee Review,<\/a> The Southern Review, <\/em>and Tar River Poetry<\/em>; other work is forthcoming in The New Criterion <\/em><\/a>and Tampa Review<\/em>.\u00a0 A bus-driving poem of his was chosen as a finalist for the James Hearst Prize and will appear in the Spring 2013 issue of The North American Review<\/em>.\u00a0 His third book,\u00a0Crush Depth<\/em>,<\/a> appeared in 2009 from Truman State University Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ADDENDUM TO THE SAFETY OFFICER’S ACCOUNT .\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0When the spanwire Snapped like a line mooring Seaman Holt … Continue reading
\nSnapped like a line mooring Seaman Holt
\nTo this world, the severing released a flood
\nOf paper from his body. I had to fill
\nEvery sheet with words.
\n\u00a0. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0A month washed by–
\nI’d written the letter to his family,
\nThe accident report, the memoranda
\nTo the various departments that had fed
\nAnd clothed and paid him, my journal entry.
\nHis face began to lose its puzzled look,
\nDissolving in the darkness of my thoughts.<\/p>\n
\nDisorderly and drunk; he’d been written up
\nFor ragged dungarees, skipping watch
\nOn the quarterdeck and unrep duties
\nOn fueling details. His final day, though,
\nHe was on that rig.
\n. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 And then Personnel
\nCalled for a Terminal Evaluation.
\nIn every category on that form–
\nSkills, discipline, personal appearance–
\nI wrote a 4.0. The yeoman typed
\nFrom this a “smooth eval” which I proofread:
\nThe comma at its end I whited out
\nTo a period.<\/p>\n