SUNDAY POETRY: "THE SEA CHEWS THINGS UP"

Photo by Southgeist, courtesy Wikimedia Commons

THE SEA CHEWS THINGS UP

by Cleopatra Mathis

  

When I woke, the waves had gone black,

turning over the macerated

curd of the ocean bottom, heaving its sludge

onto the beach. Some storm far out, I thought,

had ravaged the sea, stirred up its bed,

sent the whole mess flying to shore.

At my feet I found a grave of starfish,

broken and gnarled among the fleshy

snipes and heads. Every shade of death

covered the sand. It looked hopeless

in the pale day but for the birds,

a congress of gulls, terns, and the rarest plovers,

calm for once, satiated, a measure of

the one law: this sea will claim it all—

feed them, catch them, grind their complicated bones.