Within us, the river meanders, whispering
the surges that cradle us awake, while
above, the sea stitches itself to land—
it is the constant tender theft, the granite
metamorphosis, sand-laden, where it inhales
what can\'t be held—silvered relics, codified
in saltwater incantations: starfish, horseshoe
crab rib, vertebrae of an eroded leviathan;
where tongues of tide unfurl, presenting
delicate algae, tentacles of sea anemones—
it drifts back our wounds, the fractured net,
the splintered pot, the oar adrift, stories
of alien dead men. The sea holds myriad
voices, it is cathedral and crypt, echo
multitudes of gods, their mirrored refrains
untangle in unraveling, where the marrow
of the world\'s elegy adjoins flesh to wave.