On Such a Full Sea Are We Now

At the beach house, Mama cooked whole crabs alive.

Through the steam, we watched them slowly seize up

and stiffen like the dead fish that washed ashore

on the day you cut your foot on shattered glass.

When sand stuck to your weeping wound, I couldn’t clean it

saltwater stinging its red lips, widening the pain

inside us. I carried you back, scared of you walking barefoot

through the regurgitation of aluminum cans

and cigarette butts no one told us about.

Everything gleamed: plastic bag jellyfish

pill bottle mother-of-pearl. You were only three

I was thirteen, unable to protect you well enough.

In bed, I still heard the tide hollering at me

and wished the sea would swallow its detritus

wished I could climb out from the pool of heat I sank in

tear off the clothes that clung to my skin like a shell

and run back into the icy water

untouched by man.

At the beach house nine years later, I watch crabs

scuttle among the tall grasses

that leaned with the ripple of the surf.

I pick up a browned paper cup

and an empty candy wrapper

to build you a sandcastle.

I wish you could see how pretty it is now

when the moon pulls the sea like a blanket

over the undisturbed shoreline, where nothing reflects light

except the memory of your eyes in the blue.