Angry with You at Bower’s Beach

for Cherie

These curious fists of clay

I found wedged in the mud at low tide.

Or these odd bed-pillows of cement that lie

along the bay’s inlet and protect the homes.

Or the two gulls barking at each other over a piece of rotten

fish while their friends look on—if you were here I’d show you

the snail I picked out of the tidal pool, how it curls its tongue

around to feel if I am crab or bird or bottom of the bay—

but you’re not—so instead I write your name with a mussel so large

the pilots flying to the airbase nearby could land in the C.

“Angry with You at Bower’s Beach” is from Begin Anywhere (Alice James Books, 2008).