I stand against the tide’s advance, akimbo,
and I raise my arms, commanding the water
back into the clouds, a heavy rain drop
dropping scores of fish like derelict dreams.

Silver gray fish drop and flop among the detritus,
plop among the yellowed flipper and soda pop can,
they gasp and gape among the old boat ruins,
wriggling life among those things long dead.

I lower my arms and let the flying sea fall back,
back down to the seaweed and the sandbars,
back over the boats and beer bottles bygone,
interring again in a single, solemn rite by the shore.

And I walk away, my magic spent and wrenched,
the sea lapping at me like a metronome, and I dream
about wriggling life again among those things
cast away at the bottom of my soul.