Is the sea a graveyard?

Tell me, Scott, when the woman stopped singing,
and night descended, and you and I walked back to town,
beyond the beach as the sun sunk down toward the distant west,
why, as we stood out waiting for approaching night,
did we not say anything to one another?
You finally asked, "Is the sea a graveyard?"
and I said, "The sea is a collector,"
and as we stood and watched the shrimping boats, out in the distance,
laying out and pulling in their nets with Venus and the night stars coming out,
one by one, with the roar of the sea constant in our ears,
the tide receding out, the shells by our feet, and the woman,
walking away in the distance, I kept wanting to ask you,
"Why? Why? Why?" But you said nothing.

Jean Jones received his MFA in Creative Writing Poetry from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio and has had a book published by St Andrews Press out of St Andrews College in Laurinburg, North Carolina entitled Birds of Djakarta. He currently teaches English as a Second Language in the Basic Skills Department of Cape Fear Community College, in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Find more by Jean Jones in the Author Index.

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