A dolphin, we guessed. We watched a long
time, from the great heights of the cliffs
of Mohr, but nothing rose out of the bank
and slosh. A rock, a disappointment in a scene
we wished magical, alive, back when the two
of us were new, looking for signs. Just that,
though, a scene to join the others, flattened
into the past, the way they all go, even
this year of life-and-death exigency.
What seemed a space cut out of time,
we watch fill with detritus, as it does.
I’m tired, too tired to drive, you
steer us along the bay, point out rocks almost
submerged. Rocks, not gulls, or one gull
stationed on a rock. Deeper out the water
turns indigo, a guide to where enormities
hide, the sunk ships, the fissures, what did
we want to find, before the bright net of day,
the existing things, kept entering, and we kept
dutifully picking them up on shore, to show
each other: look, this, and this, and what
in the world shall we do with this?