The name of the town is lost.
A Kodak memory
restores the glacial scree
our bored Atlantic crossed

that burning July day.
The crowded tide drove in
like a release of sin
along the rocky bay,

leaving scattered tide pools
abandoned in its wake.
Beneath the glazed opaque
surface swam dark schools

that thrashed in private wars.
The pools were a modest hell—
a crab with a broken shell,
a starfish showing its scars.

Under the water-glass,
the fragile creatures wavered
as if a god had favored
their untidy, cramped crevasse,

though one by one
the infant pools dried.
The weaker creatures died
beneath the blinding sun.

I saw that life-giving wave
once more, beating the glacial rocks
below the broken docks,
when I stood at your grave.