ALARMING BEAUTY OF THE SKY, THE

The Ocean May Have Been the Last Thing She Saw

17 The Ocean May Have Been the LastThing She Saw In line at the marina liquor store, She’d grip the fifth of vodka like an oar, Then row around in circles half the night, And raise, with her Atlantic-colored eyes, A thousand toasts to the impervious skies. She liked to drink until she had to squint To see one moon above the reef, and spent Her days marooned on a chaise longue with white, Redundant waves and shipwrecked suns. Now gulls And hungry cormorants huddle in the shoals, Where seahorse babies curl around the grasses And broken seashells mingle with her ashes. ...