Sam Calhoun

Sifting

Low tide, the long day behind us,
all evening stretched wide
as the horizon across Battery Creek,
and then, somewhere, the ocean,
we sat sifting for shark teeth,
feet buried, not touching,
not knowing what to look for,
knowing all we had, together,
the soft crunch of trowel in sand,
passing the bucket seasick
with its handle, some grains overboard,
forgotten, before being poured
into the colander, washed in the water
dark from storms, the thick smell
of peat at our backs, old creeks
draining to estuary, these brackish
waters of our lives, hours let go like salt
in the wind, a kind of communion,
the wind pushing through the sea ox-eye
thickets, little suns dancing in our hands.