Lap lap lap lap
the tide slaps back
as Tommy watches sea foam
through the clapboard floor of his porch.
Once he looked down and saw
the hand of a dead man,
the gray thumb upturned
in the foamy mud.
Tommy has never failed to watch
since then, eye turning back
hoping, almost, to find a mystery,
instead of the glum marsh,
the flat blue green water of high tide.
His father built the porch wide and loose
around the shack, which is built up
five more feet on stilts
so rising water won't come inside.
Shack-wise: two rooms, one a bedroom, the other
a kitchen with a broad sturdy table,
the outhouse down on the porch side.
When oysters aren't in season
they live away from the Narrows.
When oysters are ripe
the family grows fierce
and sharpen knives, shovels,
and gather hooks in old sea hats
to earn the pretty coins sea creatures bring.
Tommy keeps pots, and traps.
Ties poles to watch
and pass the time
while his father’s out on the rocks
where he beds his oysters.
The Delta Rogue is docking today
at Ally's Tavern, and the pier will lean
and groan with so much traffic.
Drunks will roar tonight.
Ally's been stocking
drift wood for the cook fires all week.
His father will shell out
and come home to drink with his mother.
They will laugh and eat candy sticks
and share their brandy with him
in measured sips. They will sing
songs and listen for other tunes
that broadcast across the marsh,
at night, when there is no wind,
when the tide is low and the land
cups the sound and carries
news to those who listen.
Hearts break like bottles of beer,
someone's singing is out of tune.
Whale bone stomps, shouts
of brassy brawls. The bright morning
will bring cheerless wind, blue endless skies.
There will be more breaking up of beds,
pulling shells, running clam rakes up and down
and to and fro for ever and ever and after.
