The dying was done; the rapid fear
of its waterless suffocation, errant hook
or whatever had killed it—gone,
the fetid rot that lured seagulls
and sand crabs to gorge themselves
content, even my grieving for things
that I cannot save in time, had passed.
I found it when the life it had taken on
was perfection; of absolute stillness
of sun-whitened bones in piano-key straights,
precise decumbent pins tediously slipped
into the length of its spine, just below
its song-opened jaw and visionless sockets,
along the narrow secession of a slender curved
fin— the fragile white porcelain of each bone flat
against the tide’s chine in negative shadows,
just as the eddy drew it, just as the sun affirmed it.
Lorraine Henrie Lins serves as the Director of New and Emerging Poets with Tekpoet and is a founding member of the “No River Twice” improvisational poetry troupe. She is the author of five books of poetry, including the forthcoming Without the Water. Lins’ work appears in a wide variety of familiar publications and collections, as well as a small graffiti poster in New Zealand. For more information, please visit: www.LorraineHenrieLins.com