You and I were on the beach for soft-shell crabs. It
was summer and volleyball and anxious
desperation. But the ocean-breath undid
the knots and frayed the heartstrings and sanded
all of it down. There: the wreckage. The hurricane
burrowed inside us and we counted dead gulls and
swallowed sand. There was one, not two, and
certainly, not three, for that would be all too human.
Everything as God intended. Soon, the last horse of
the apocalypse neighed. I forgot the sound. But it
was quiet after, and our bodies were awash with the
wave-crash. Crash. Crash. Crash … Language does
not leave solution. It was not-silent and you were
not-speaking in code. We counted crustaceans, but
numbers, like crabs, sunk. Everything, like you,
threw itself, as sacrifice, into the sea. Nowhere,
nohow. I dig you out of sand. Black bead; white
pearl; red mineral streak. Words leave a fragile crust
on your pale lips, and you stay cold.
