Death Has No Name (4/30)

I can’t remember the ocean
the way I used to - the way sand
felt beneath bare feet, how gulls
circled lazily overhead, picking at
the carcass of a washed up
Portugese man-o-war.

Bronze bodies stretched across
the sand. Tight ribs thrust up like
some great Naga; emaciated and
trying to slither free of a three
thousand dollar prison.

Near the shore, sand castles would
rise and fall, as if every child were
a politician and every wave were God;
the tide leaving fish to rot in the sun.