Because scientists have their fingers on our spines, we lift our shirts
to let their studies slap against our waves. Where are the sandpipers
of our youth? The house on the coast where I saw ghosts
of myself in every mirror. Sometimes I lust for a year
that has already happened. There’s no need to apologize
for hope because every year another kingfisher catches a fish,
because the herons pose like dark preachers talking about afterlife.
How often we forget what is holy, forget the holy in each other,
forget the tenderness of a stranger painting our grief
beneath the ocean in big brushstrokes, and for a moment
we walk around the dunes where families
of ants carry what crumbs they can find and we find a new trail
of wild strawberries and become beach citizens of found fruit,
become the P.S. I love you on the postcard we continue to write.
