Concrete shacks
shuttered against November
stagger at the foot of the coast
Bright washed wood doors,
a motorcycle
The rust splashed road
turns up crenelated hillside
to more expensive
villas, coral apartment reefs
The coastal lowland is turnip field,
bluegreen leaves bright standing
against the rich red mud hoed fields
Birds float in twos,
black against the shallows
where sweet water mixes
from the land to the harbor
Boats lie in brown muck
along with their spent anchorholds
no water to grab
My fingers curl
into my palms
chilly in fingerless
black gloves
I’m tender footed on
the sharp beach,
stooping over
to examine, sort shells
from plastic trash in tidal pools
Clumpets of anemones (!)
wave mute graygreen arms
in one pool
The creatures in my pocket
which I’d thought dead
stir in my pocket,
twitter insect chitin limbs
I reexamine each shell–
they’re all inhabited–
and I throw them one
by one into a tidal pool
speckled with briny colors,
clumps of seaweed,
a pale dead crab
The variegation of the universe
on the beach, the ordered universe
of leaves in fields, fruit trees in yards,
briny concrete
There is detail
here. Blood air impacts
everything it touches
The sky is what is left over,
thin and clear