He'd been holed up with the wind
and grew accustomed to its chanting,
alto at the corners of the frame,
bowing out the windows
in two-toned gasps,
lament for the clotting sea
thick with jelly fish and twistoffs,
mylar balloons deflated at the tideline
proclaiming happy this and happy that,
he couldn't call it singing.
Long ago he'd lived with a woman
higher up in the hills
with different glimpses of the sea,
and it's good she wasn't there now,
holed up in the dark
behind the eroding dunes,
each tide scrubbing deeper than the last
and leaving less.
