When the last man on the shore sings, waves
return with a shoal of corpses. The rotting flesh
piled on the dunes bares the skeleton, à la
the starving ribs of boats in Van Gogh’s
Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. The fixed gaze of the
dead, parts the long hair of the night, flashes
the searchlight, calls the floating corpses home.
The trail of their disfigured hands vanish along
with the crabs. The hands that no more hold an
oar, swing a catch, or hug the sand. The night, a
burrow to Alice’s Wonderland. Our fantasies go
down that vesper to return an outcry. The blea-
ched day, a secluded constable who stands guard
to our loss, holding a paraffin lamp. Clad in a
thick blanket of the system, he goes about
his clerical tasks, counting death as if pockets in
a cargo pant. When the dead men sing on the
waves, the wind hums along, the owl hoots
desolation. The earth, a chorus of apology for
the Plexiglas towers of untouchable happiness.