You sat in the tub.
No sand stirred, the dead
waited in the ocean.
Then the tapwater
flooded over you,
sapphire and emerald.

The beach
is as you found it,
littered with objects.
They have brought me here;
I rifle through them,
shell and bone, and am not satisfied.

What brought me to rest was your body.
Far away you turn your head:
through still grass the wind
moves into a human language

and the darkness comes,
the long nights
pass into stationary darkness.

Only the sea moves.
It takes on color, onyx and manganese.
If you are there it will release you
as when, among the tame waves,
I saw your worn face,
your long arms making for shore—

The waves come forward,
we are traveling together.