It's Still Life

From a Sea-Salted Dock

We wore black. Wore our perfumery
like strung pearls and affection, and
spoke whispered words that left us
tongue-tied and arid. God watched,

tasted our tears; stirred our petrichor,
calm-scented as grey-fringed clouds.
And we stood on the sea-salted dock,
released his ashes to the air, to the sea.

There on the coldest day February
had ever seen, there in that harbour,
fishing boats iced and rocking, frayed
sails wind-stiff and slapping the air.

There with empty eel traps and torn
shrimp nets. Empty. So empty.

Written for University of Iowa’s Writing Course, “Walt Whitman’s Civil War: Writing and Imaging Loss, Death, and Disaster”, Class Assignment 5 — Memories and Senses