RAZORSHELL WRECK ON BARLEYCOVE BEACH ON THE EVE OF ALL SAINTS' DAY

1 0 4 Y R A Z O R S H E L L W R E C K O N B A R L E Y C O V E B E A C H O N T H E E V E O F A L L S A I N T S ’ D A Y J O H N K I N S E L L A A small wreck is a large wreck when a species is in retreat, undertow and wave-sets soothe and stress between slate hills: the rise & fall, the artwork re-inscribed in sand which will gradually wash away, the full weight of the Atlantic. So attuned, so sensitive, so determined to pull themselves down – foot anchored hydraulic pull to start again down down down – razorshell feedertube sucking low tide sweet and sour into the glasses-case body, enrapture, huddling organs snug against a cutthroat world’s predators, the larger shifts making small changes massive, prescribe low-tide second-sight, test hope as St. Jude’s day swell ripped the world apart, a mass of brethren exposed to make detritus of selves, the soup of origins and excrescence sharply in bands of shifting light, dozens scattered on this earthquake beach, this harbor wave jewel where corpses cut bare feet to bone or sinew, ghouls and gods make sense of spring water bottles and plastic ropes binding ‘‘best-kept secrets.’’ So many starved here, and razorshells make discrete sub-fences that will briefly hold the residue of Lisbon’s collapse, a history divined in shell, its dead reflections, separations along vaguely perfect faultlines, what fate saw from below the sand. ...