Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Arroyo Burro Beach

Arroyo Burro Beach. The tide dies a while
                   then starts its way up again —
  & up again.
                        
 Fog rolls in, dense & sudden. Behind me 
          there’s a rock halfway to the end 
                   of the bay, hunched, split in two,
                   black & blue with mussels —
 
            that’s where I turn around & walk 
                   back each day. A restlessness
swells inside the tides there — & it’s there
            each time, just before I can look 
away — everything
            drowns into itself again & into gray.
 
I no longer pick up shells — I let them be: 
                   wave rake them back & place them
             at my feet again anyway:
small skeletons, empty of life, 
                                 but pretty.
           
Look at me, writing circles around what I must face:
                        The man I love is dead.
          
The ashes he asked I lose to this ocean are still
                        in our room, in a red box
          he gave me, for some birthday in New York.
 
His dust. I’ll keep it a while longer  —  keep it 
            as one secretly keeps something                     
                                    for one’s self  
& won’t, today at least, 
            lose more of him to these waves.

‘Arroyo Burro Beach’ from These Many Rooms (c) 2019 by Laure-Anne Bosselaar. Appears with permission of Four Way Books. All rights reserved.