something I said
Sean Patrick Mulroy
that morning, the tide went out
and didn’t come back. we all stood
holding hands on the shore, still
as the water had never been.
the sand moaned like old wood beneath us,
slithered away without a backward glance.
we watched fish turn sloppy pirouettes
in the distance until the last of them died,
and nothing moved.
the patches of coral, left to shudder in the wind
a hedge maze of bone. the odd iron carcasses
of boats, startled to find themselves awake
in sunlight, rubbing rust from their eyes—
had god momentarily unspoken the sea
it might have looked like this.
but what is created with words
can not be undone in this way.
long before we saw the wave
we heard it.
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