In this post-industrial vacationland
we can always return to the shore—
and what the shore returns to us
is magnanimous. Families plant
bright umbrellas in the sand like
they’re Armstrong staking the moon,
then get on their phones to tell what-
ever sucker is still home in winter
that they’re on the beach. Before
midday sun, I walk the wrack line
alongside retirees bent over looking
for sharks’ teeth and other treasures
in piles of shell hash. Some use
slotted kitchen spoons duct-taped
to golf clubs to unearth wet sand
and others use Florida snow shovels—
mesh baskets on sticks—to patiently
sift Gulf detritus. Everyone keeps
their heads down meditatively when
they walk. Still others are waist-deep
in the surf with colorful floating sifters.
These fossils are Pleistocene Epoch—
shined black, glistening bits
of calcified dentin like a strip of film
passing through a projector’s gate
then catching: dust on the lens,
a rendering of some thing long gone
and nearly traceless—the chance and
distance built into the very mechanism
of beholding. This year we’ve survived
not quite the apocalypse but something
close. Look at us: our still-seeking bodies
withstanding the waves and rip currents,
time and metamorphosis be damned.
"Small Offerings" was originally published in Defunkt 9 (2022).
