Island

Island It's getting hard to see
for all the shipwrecks.

Splintered boards, tangled masts, bearded
helmsmen—some still smiling, the promise

of perfection still skating their eyes despite
the illogical angles of their limbs.

In sunlight, I help my sisters carry
bleached bones across a dry beach.

We press them into the sand, simple.
I like, have always liked, the shift of cool

sand flooding my hands, this part
I've played since I can remember.

But things have changed.
Last time: a femur grating, knocking

against something equally hard below.
A hateful sound. Bone against bone.

I shoved until my elbows disappeared, then further
and further until my sisters had to pry me loose.

But it felt good.
And I've been thinking about

this blasted immortality
and how I'd trade it all

to feel the sand pour over
my ears as well, to

erase the sounds of birds,
the gulls, the waves which tear

our shore year by year but never quite
manage erosion.