Birthmark

A Shadow of Gulls

 A Shadow of Gulls Against the ferry’s hull, a knot of water fell when the engines died, & we drifted between pilings woven together with rope. As the boat pressed into boards, the crew appeared, pulling free blocks chocked behind tires. We drove over the cast-iron ramp that lay on the deck like a tongue into the whiteness of the barrier island: a squat lighthouse in the center of the neighborhood, the occasional whitecaps disappearing in the marina while intimacy lies somewhere in the expanse of the salt marsh, lifeforms huddled in the mud. Driving over the first of several small bridges, creeks with words like molasses in their names, I pointed over to the rasp of cord grass & told you how, one summer, my brothers & I had seined the water for young blue claws. Shiny, they reflected the sky as we held each tender body, until they slid from our hands & formed clouds in the green water. That was years ago, & those crabs are either dead or somewhere deep in the Atlantic, scavenging the last piece of flesh on bone. Maybe the skeleton of a whale, or maybe even a man, whose last breath was not a scream, but a few words, his name trapped in water, ascending into light. ...