(after Jackie Leven)

I snitch a pebble from the pier-side,
teeny, spray-soaked, worn to a bearing.
The rasping bay spins in a copper blur,
a thumb-size shrimp boat sways shoreward.

I will not return now to the tied-up house
with its triple locks and welded snecks
and its citizens who yowl in the mirk
or stiffen in the soundless, month-long days,

where the ocean’s roar loups from room
to room, salt-staining the unpainted walls.
I don’t know where I got these bloody hands
or why that sobbing carries on the wind.