The house tumbles, gable first
into the clawing waters of the Atlantic
while shutters surf and crest
and the hot-tub's billowing cover
drapes a bobbing plastic chair
in a shroud’s embrace.

Long-legged egrets screech and
skitter across the upstairs deck,
once attached to the master bedroom
riding high and rafting seaward
upon the booming cauldron.

Cubed blocks, rent from
off the glass-walled shower stall
shoot light, refract back,
tumble in the pounding surf
churning, abrading
into nascent sea glass.

Bottles of Merlot, Shiraz, Zinfandel
gambol, tipsy out to sea,
with the shark-finned flat-screen TV
slices through the pounding surf
toward a clutch
of clanking sauté pans.

A hairbrush floats alone.

The lap-pool
embedded behind the shredding house
too deeply anchored to join
the ocean's thrust and dance,
is left to mourn.

Joyce Finn is a Boston-based freelance writer who spent over twenty years abroad. Her work has been published internationally in publications as diverse as MSNBC.com, The Robb Report, Inc Magazine, Poets & Writers, and The Bermudian. She had a play performed in Bermuda and organized two international writing conferences.