Home

I point out the mass,
a foot from shore
amidst the swirling
of the incoming tide.

She crouches low
to examine the milky
center, silky tentacles luminous
in the late afternoon sun.

Gently, I press its flesh
with a stick of driftwood,
thinking it upside down
and in need of rescue,

but its body
is an illusion,
and I am mistaken.
Fitting, I think,

having just watched her scatter
her father’s ashes across the sand
with youth’s exuberance,
flinging and skipping and

singing as the heat-lightened
dust and bits of bone
sifted downward,
found home.