MiPo Poetry Board Best of 2002

Absence Of Wind

After the hurricane, grandfather
drove to a beach, parked his blue pickup,
left me to walk through cathedrals

of sand. White shells overhead
like small stars freed to find sky.
And I remember this thought,
that the ocean had emptied

her belly, and if I gathered it up,
in my hands, in pockets of my jeans,
in the box I had brought for treasure,

somehow I could give her breath
and she would never be empty.

I waited for paramedics to come
I waited, the two of us
exchanging air like small gifts
wrapped in the paper of my rib

The cardboard is wet on my skin.
Life smells of salt and the man next to me,
the one I have loved, wants to know
what I'll remember, what I'll remember
after he is gone, when all we are left
is the pink shell of what we have lived.
I say nothing, carry it in my pocket.

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