Beachcombing

you collect bottlecaps along the shore, handing each along to me to place in my pocket as lucky
stones. we will line them up carefully along the windowsill later, watch the hot-red sun set over
them.

we see the most beautiful pearlescent shell & it is a container of floss, a tampon applicator, a
stick of crumbling deodorant underneath the sand. you point to the loops of plastic and call them
crabs, you pick up cigarette butts batting in the surf and name them barnacles—their tongues of
ash long swallowed in the sea.

caught against a rock is a sheet of bubble wrap, which we pop so you might understand how it
was once to hold the fucus’ claw-like strands and naively crack them open, spilling their seeds
all over the beach.

if i imagine the smoke from an oregon wildfire is the marine layer rolling in off the sea, it is
almost like i stepped through time with you to the same beach in the year 2003. both of us
watching the real marigold sea star. both of us pointing to the anemone, pale as grapefruit,
swaying in the tidepool.

instead we are here: the memory in my throat bobbing and sharp, & you joyously watching to see
which pool will catch the shiniest can as the tide slugs out.