Poetry Review Special Feature: "Adrift in the Sea of Online Dating" by Kristine Chalifoux

Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is pleased to present "Adrift in the Sea of Online Dating," a previously unpublished poem by Kristine Chalifoux, the Chairperson of the English Department at Raleigh Charter High School.  Ms. Chalifoux received her MFA from Columbia University.  In her professional life, she has been the Assistant Director of the Poetry Society of America, and the Associate Director of DePaul University’s Honors Program.  Her chapbook, In This Light, won the 1999 West Town Press prize.  Her poems have appeared in a number of literary magazines, including The Brooklyn Review, The Antioch Review, and Janus Head.  She resides in North Carolina with her magical daughter, Ktimene.

Adrift in the Sea of On-Line Dating

Kristine Chalifoux

Alone on my island of rumpled bed clothes

I desire to put my best foot forward

Which is good, since what follows,

Arthritic knee and stiff hip, are wonky

At best. I desire what we all do, a calm port

In the storm, and find this glass and steel

Box, with its flickering images, its buttons

Like “flirt” or “smile” or “like” the most

Unworthy of vehicles, hardly seaworthy

And yet the boat in which I find myself

Journeying forth. What I really need

To find is the right sail to catch the winds

Of change, whatever gusts are sashaying

Through this channel, this rugged pass

Littered with boulders and half-submerged

Jagged rocks ready to capsize this frail

Craft at every moment. It doesn’t  help

To see inside the box, to find the lost

Left broken and bereft amid their hopeless

Grammar and navigationless spelling

Errors. So many shipwrecks!    So much

Drowning. I  thought it would be

Easy to ahoy another mariner, an able bodied

Seaman who can trim the jib and reef

The sail, someone who, like me, has room

For one more sailor on the deck, and

Who, like me, is learning, step by

Cautious step, to navigate by starlight.

Poet's Notes: As a writer, I tend to take the ability to communicate effectively on the page somewhat for granted; however, finding myself recently single and engaging in the social phenomenon known as "online dating," I've had to reconsider the gift of literacy and my gratitude for it.

Editor’s Note:  I enjoy the nice, lilting rhythm of this poem and find the conceit of nautical navigation as a metaphor for Internet dating to be refreshingly original and well presented.  Ms. Chalifoux’s use of ironic humor is just right, too.  There are, after all, "plenty of fish in the sea."  The trick is to find the right fish.