A Gathering
Assateague’s wind-littered beach
meets me, often, on violent mornings:
early spring, the limp crucifix
of tangled skate. Or the hard autumn
freeze on fallow fields. Today
I came across a hermit,
a combination of weathered shell
and invertebrate detail. Courting
the surf’s edge, he contemplated
whelk, settled lightly
on battered carapace, and gorged.
As I approached the single
feast—intricate crab workings,
imprecise red claw and eyes—
he disappeared into undertow. As waves
like shipwrecks then crashed
in the crescendo of the scene,
minimal armies relished in their creel,
black-headed gulls were born
of drifting chicken bones, and I
turned toward my Olds
and felt the wind consume the sea.
