We found the bones on the beach—
blanketed with gray feathers,
hollow like drinking straws.
Overhead the late gull’s children
mourned relentlessly. The carcass,
stripped as it was by crabs and wind,
was not new.
The waves crept closer. With a snap
you split the wings, a ragged break
down the brittle breastbone.
You sent one wing to sea. The other
capped a driftwood crucifix,
the waterlogged wood dripping
with kelp and spinning shells.
My numb fingers traced the tracks I knew
in the sand. A pile of cold stones
for ink, shifting shoreline
the blank page.
Your wings departed, but I stood
by my word. Six letters in the sand:
remain.
