Day 73: Shipwreck

It took me fifty years to realize we’d wrecked.
I should’ve known by the sound of the waves,
By the splintered bow, the fractured mast,
By the shore’s angry undertow.
I broke the window so we’d have a knife.
I tied the rope so we’d have a lead.
I gathered scraps of sail to sew
With a fishhook needle and tendon thread.
I walked a line in the sand
While the birds cracked shells
And picked at the soft tissues inside.
They caw their half-century song,
A hymn we can’t agree on.
Where you hear praise,
I hear only mourning.