Afterward, the roiled
detritus washes up for days, shifting but always stuck in the wrack-zone’s

back and forth. No one owns
it and no one can really take it away; it has foiled

all remediation 
efforts and it always will. But it does change. Small things accrue

meaning in their accumulation; sharp things do
lose edge to agitation,

and afterward,
the tide recedes across a field of silicate and calcium

and vitreous aggregate. It is the sum 
total of everything we will ever break, jettison, discard. 

I admit it: I still fail
at being happy enough, though I know what the litter becomes when the tide’s been at it.

When it’s washed and sunlit
the wreckage can seem like treasure. Thrust a hand in and pull it back bleeding, fist full

of sea glass and something sharp you weren’t expecting. I don’t want to sift
through all that anymore; it’s all just words, and after words

empty shells even the birds
know better than to linger over. They were liars, whoever said a long memory was a gift.