Death Anniversary

After your suicide by drowning,
the whales refrained from beaching
on this coast for one thousand mornings.
But some scores cannot be evened.

The First Time I Saw the Sea

The first boy that I dated weighted down his coif
with so much hair gel that the crest atop his pate
was hard as horses’ teeth. But the first man I loved
had curls so soft and yielding, sea-wind seemed to sit
nestled at all times in their depths.

I asked him, once, to drive me to a beach. I hoped
to see hot conch-strewn sand unfurl before my vision
like a bronze sarong warmed by the body it once draped.
But the beach he drove me to was stone-gray and snow-ribboned,
its seashells sparse and small as grapes.