Athena Kildegaard

gnarls of bone-white wood and a tanker

stacked in red and white containers six deep,

cormorants and hooded mergansers and one

grebe dive and bob, dive and bob, utterly

oblivious to waves and foam.

There should be a lesson here, in capitalism

or some other -ism, or perhaps a lesson

in frivolity. Plunging, chugging, lying still

beached and sand-blown. Everyone here

leaves prints in the sand, slight marks of attention.

And then, with wind or tide, the prints are dragged

away. Overhead, jets leave contrails.

At night Starlink floats by, its worry bracelet

of lights asking nothing of anyone, leaving

no trace. Somewhere at any moment

someone writes words to someone else.

How to not be oblivious, how to listen.