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58 Ebb Tide Quilcene Bay 1985 Down to the cold sea in winter. Four a.m. Intermittent moon. The beach glistens with slack Invertebrates the tide stranded. I start at the high water line, Follow the water as the moon Pulls it toward deep ocean. I’m on my knees in Helly Hansons, A bottle of peppermint schnapps In the big pocket with the velcro flap. Not yet warm from the work. I drag my empty onion sack Through the mud and rake a circle At the edge of the receding water. Rake deep and the clams pop up Like dirty nuts in the lantern glow. Rinse them and put them in the sack. Less mud, less weight to carry . . . I fill four sacks some nights. Forty cents a pound, eighty Pounds to a sack, maybe $150 before Sunrise when the bars open and I drag Myself into the Whistling Oyster, fall Asleep in rain gear over whiskey shots. Each night I come to the ocean to die. Each night I come to be reborn. Beyond The glow of the lantern rain and wind blow 59 The sand into the pilings of an old pier And whittle it to the waterline. An owl cries from the shadowed coast. An orca answers, come inland to feed In the warm shallows, afraid of nothing But impervious shapes adrift on water. I drink peppermint schnapps From my cold fist, throw back my head And sing. I’m inside out, blood running west Across sand, a parable of bones, drift wood. I pull my heart from the tide before it’s swept to sea. Walk inland as my shadow swims away. ...

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