Mrs Noah: Taken After The Flood

Written by Jo Shapcott

I can't sit still these days. The ocean
is only memory, and my memory as fluttery
as a lost dove. Now the real sea beats
inside me, here, where I'd press fur and feathers
if I could. I'm middle aged and plump.
Back on dry land I shouldn't think these things:
big paws which idly turn to bat the air
my face by his ribs and the purr which ripples
through the boards of the afterdeck,
the roar - even at a distance - ringing in my bones,
the rough tongue, the claws, the little bites,
the crude taste of his mane. If you touched my lips
with salt water I would tell you such words,
words to crack the sky and launch the ark again
(1998)


This poem written by Jo Shapcott is about the memories of a woman on the dry land.

It seems to me that she is a survivor probably a shipwreck on cold waters of an ocean or a sea or this is a metaphor, she has been taken by who? a violent man? probably yes.

She has been beaten and raped by a man by a bat "the roar - even at a distance - ringing in my bones" and "the rough tongue, the claws, the little bites,

the crude taste of his mane. If you touched my lips

with salt water I would tell you such words,

words to crack the sky and launch the ark again"

It is also suggest a link to the Ark of Noah, in my opinion it means that it was an error to save the man as a superior entity without considering the role of the women in the formation of the future societies, if there were Mrs Noah the history was different.