At Popham Beach

Haze of wave spume towards Small Point,

Seguin Island Light like a whale's spout—

maybe life washes itself here, cools off.

It never comes clean. See all the sails up

and full in the windy parade of skin

and sand and brine. Soon the rocks will pluck

each wave's feathers. Soon the beach

like the moon, waning, will be 1/8th its size.

Somewhere else—maybe Ireland—the tide

will bottom out then. For now the sun

blesses the bodies at home in theirs,

and those less so, to ruin and ruin's aftermath—

whatever that is—and the waves rolling in,

little snowplows, nimbus in miniature; how

the beach fishhooks east, one child—

is that mine, or some spirit I was one more

usher of?—face up, arms and legs

scraping a temporary angel in the sand.