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The sea breathed here
before swell reduced to river,
before salt retreated from shores
I now call home. I cross
the dike to wade through waves,
search for skipping stones, for shells,
fill my pockets with the wet sand of this
new land.
In winter the water rises, reclaims
the beach — the ghost-hulls of wooden
ships stand tied in port, gills of ancient
fish suck and sputter: shadows
of a banished sea — and I
struggle for a footing in the mire.
If the flat, black rocks beneath my feet
were to burst open, they would not reveal
the brilliance of geodes or gray
of stones. Even the years I hold
in each breath beneath my ribs
cannot compete with the hard secrets
concealed there: the scent
of oceans, the urge
to follow the pull of the moon,
the memory of brine.
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