Everyone at work cheers when the observatory wins
a big contract from the phone company.
Before new cable lines are laid undersea, one man works
at the desk by Marie’s, studying temperatures
at the ocean floor, which could affect the transmissions.
The phone company wants to know
why old telegraph lines snapped where they did.
One theory is that underwater earthquakes broke them.
Howard Foster, the third person in Marie’s office,
starts to chart the thousands of places
where earthquakes began in the North and South Atlantic.
He turns locations of earthquake epicenters
into a lengthening row of dots on a map.
It’s a rote sort of work that doesn’t ask for wonder,
the kind of task Marie is grateful not to be assigned.
But she’s asked to help with it and other men’s work,
not put in charge of her own. She looks at the rolled maps
leaning against a bare wall. She’s not the only person
here who can handle thumbtacks or tape.
Let somebody else hang these.